Van der Sar To Fill Coton Role?

It was announced on Thursday that our goalkeeping coach, Tony Coton, retired due to a recurring knee problem. The former City hero has established himself as one of the best coaches in the business and at 46 has been forced to end his ten year stint with the club. An operation earlier this month failed to resolve the problem.

It was announced late last night that Edwin Van der Sar has signed a one year contract extension with the club, after previously suggesting that this could be his last season with the club. This initially sparked off talk that our 37 year old Dutch keeper was set to fulfil the coaching role, just as Solskjaer made the cross over earlier this year.

Tomasz Kuszczak, 25, has done a good job when called upon this season, with the exception of his blip against Sporting Lisbon back in November, and is obviously at the club to fight for a first team place. He is been relatively unchallenged in light of the injury to Ben Foster, 24, who is tipped as the long term replacement of Van der Sar.

However, Sir Alex Ferguson moved to dispel any coaching rumours, saying, “Edwin has signed a new contract for another year, so he will be here as a player next season, totally as a player. We are pleased at that because his experience has been a great help to this club. He is the number one at the moment, so he has a chance being number one next season, but obviously Ben Foster will be back from injury next year, so that’s great for competition. You can’t guarantee players a position and say that they are definitely going to be in your team. I’m sure Edwin will want to be number one though. That’s why he signed his contract. I’m also sure that Ben will give him a good challenge.”

Would you like to see Van der Sar stay on past June 2009 in the role of a coach?