The decision for Santos was made last season. The decision to have Santos in goal didn’t come overnight, but rather when he moved into goal last season.
After the cruciate ligament tear, many people actually didn’t expect such a quick return. Santos doesn’t come out of this well, the pressure is probably just too high.
The pressure on Zetterer is now there, now he has to convince.
Zetti is strong. Santos is talented, but he also lacks the experience to deal with something like that. Grahl has that, and the SGE has always been able to rely on it when it has to do something. Like Chandler, he is also good for team climate.
The question really is what is causing the unity here. Weak phase.. Or weak support.. Or weak defense?
Personally, I think Zetterer is not only the better goalkeeper at the moment, but also the right solution in the long term. Santos is not really suitable for Buli (at least not at the moment), even though I was thrilled by his spectacular TW game last season.
If Zetterer holds up well now and the results are consistent, Santos will not return to the goal either. I think…
It’s too cheap for me (no offense intended towards you) to blame the defensive crisis on Santos. Koch and Theate in particular, two of the team’s leading players and absolute top performers last season, both had catastrophic starts to the season. There were terrible mistakes with Zetterer in goal, but they weren’t punished as much in the first few games. But against Engers we were partly lucky that there were no goals conceded.
Then Santos came back, probably too soon after the injury, and ran into this defensive crisis of form. But they didn’t just exist since he was there, but before. In my opinion, he has only himself to blame two of the many goals conceded in the last few weeks: He once jumped past a ball in Gladbach and unfortunately underestimated Grifo as a free-kick taker on Sunday and put the wall wrong/left the corner open. But it just sucks for him when one of the most reliable defenders in the Bundesliga in the last two seasons (Koch) plays absolute disaster passes against Bayern and Freiburg, for example, which directly result in free attacks and early goals conceded. Against Bayern after 15 seconds, against Freiburg after 100 or so. This is absolutely ungrateful for a young goalkeeper like Santos in his situation.
I’m excited to see how Zetterer does and of course I wish him success, also because I find him incredibly likeable. In my opinion, the future still belongs to Santos at the SGE, and this change will take place at some point. The only question is when that will happen, I’m pretty sure. And in the short term it is crucial whether Koch, Theate and Co. find their way back to their stable defensive form from last season, because otherwise Zetterer won’t be able to change the flood of goals conceded.