Chris Wilder has spoken to Teesside Live about the importance he has placed on trusting his goalkeepers at Middlesbrough. 

Joe Lumley has spent much of the season as Boro's first-choice goalkeeper, but Luke Daniels has come in for the last five Championship matches. 

Playing his first two games of the season under Neil Warnock, Daniels has since established himself in the starting XI with Wilder now at the helm. 

With those two goalkeepers continuing to battle it out for regular minutes in the Wilder era, Dejan Stojanovic is also an option in-between the sticks as the season progresses. 

Speaking to Teesside Live about the goalkeeping situation at his new club, Wilder has said: “I’d like a goalkeeper that keeps the ball out of the back of the net! It’s pretty simple.

"More seriously, I do recognise that it’s a very important position. Earlier in my career, I probably didn’t. I probably got caught up in the tactical thing and focused more on midfielders or forwards, but I’d find myself thinking, ‘Yeah, we played really well, but the goalkeeper’s let one through his legs’.

"It’s really important. In a simplistic way, the bit in the middle of the pitch is really important because it allows you to dominate possession and create chances and dictate the flow of the game, but ultimately it’s what happens at both ends that tends to decide things.

"The goalkeeper makes a big save or the forwards are clinical and put the ball in the back of the net.

"At the weekend (Millwall), Luke didn’t really have a lot to do. It’s open.

"I’d like two really good goalkeepers, and I’d like the best I can possibly get. When people talk about money and wanting to get the best goalkeeper, I want the best goalkeeper I can get, so it’s over to those guys now to show me what they can do."

The verdict 

This is a fresh start for all three of Middlesbrough's goalkeepers at senior level, and whilst Daniels has been trusted so far, it appears that his starting XI position is by no means secure. 

Lumley now has the opportunity to prove himself on a daily basis at training to reclaim a starting spot back, whilst Stojanovic's position has also been bolstered with this opportunity.

It is a good position for Wilder to be in, as if none of the goalkeepers show him that they have what it takes to operate at his standards, then the January transfer window is just around the corner.