Craig McLeish reckons becoming a Saint can help Jacob Chapman fly high with the Socceroos. The 25-year-old Australian goalkeeper has signed a two-year deal with St Mirren after leaving Huddersfield Town and has eyes on breaking into Tony Popovic’s Aussie squad.
Chapman Fills Void Left by George
Chapman fills the void left by Shamal George’s exit following the Englishman’s season-long loan stint in Paisley from Wycombe Wanderers. The shotstopper made 25 appearances for Huddersfield but spent the majority of his time in West Yorkshire loaned out to Crawley Town, Rochdale, Salford City and Gateshead.
McLeish Backs Permanent Keeper
Now Buddies boss McLeish is confident the 6ft 2in keeper can take the next step with St Mirren - and in turn provide their own solid foundation. George, Zach Hemming and Emery Balcombe have been loan number ones for the past three years in Paisley. And McLeish says it’s time the Buddies had one of their own between the sticks.
He said: “Jacob is a really good all-round goalkeeper. He will help us for building the ball from the back. He went out on-loan into League Two last season and kept a lot of clean sheets and statistically was one of the best shotstoppers in that league. More importantly he is a permanent goalkeeper. We wanted to get away from taking in a loan and developing another club’s goalkeeper for them. He is ours, we will develop him and we want to get him to the stage of his career that he wants to reach. He has aspirations to break into the Australian national team and things like that. They are part of the targets we are setting for him and we want to work on them over the next two to three years.”
Four New Arrivals at SMiSA
Chapman is one of four new arrivals at the SMiSA following midfielders Samuel Ramos from Zemplin Michalovce and Ryan Carr from Ipswich Town and Airdrie playmaker Chris Mochrie. All four featured in last week’s pre-season friendly defeat to Hearts in Spain ahead of the Buddies’ season kicking off away to Dumbarton in the League Cup on Saturday.
