Michael Oakes

Michael Oakes
Personnel
Surname	Michael Christian Oakes
birthday	October 30, 1973
place of birth	Northwich ,  England
position	goalkeeper
Juniors
Years	station
	Aston Villa
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1991-1999	Aston Villa	52 (0)
1992-1993	→  Gloucester City  (loan)	18 (0)
1993	→  Bromsgrove Rovers  (loan)
1993-1994	→  Scarborough FC  (loan)	1 (0)
1999-2007	Wolverhampton Wanderers	199 (0)
2007-2008	Cardiff City	11 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1994-1996	England U-21	6 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Michael Christian Oakes (born October 30, 1973 in Northwich ) is a former English football goalkeeper and son of Alan Oakes , the record player of Manchester City . The longtime Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper has been without a club since the end of the 2007/08 season after his last stint at Cardiff City .

Athletic career

Aston Villa (1991-99)

Alan Oakes went through the youth teams of Aston Villa and came in the senior division for the first time at the lower class club Gloucester City in the 1992/93 season to his first competitive appearances. In professional football, he celebrated his debut at Scarborough FC , where the "Villans" had loaned the young man between the posts between November 1993 and May 1994 - but there was only one league game here. At his home club he came after the injury of Mark Bosnich on August 17, 1996 against Sheffield Wednesday for the first time and by Bosnichs increasing vulnerability to injury he gained further experience and came to 60 competitive games by the end of the 1998/99 season. Nevertheless, the six-time England U-21 international never finally got beyond the status of substitute goalkeeper and when the club signed a high-profile goalkeeper successor with David James in June 1999 following Bosnich's departure to Manchester United , Oakes asked to leave the club to leave.

Wolverhampton Wanderers (1999-2007)

Michael Oakes' path led to nearby Wolverhampton , where he joined the Wanderers for a transfer fee of £ 450,000 . He quickly ousted the veteran Mike Stowell from the position of "number 1" and up to and including the 2001/02 season he was the goalkeeper of the "Wolves". In September 2002 he suffered a shoulder injury and his young representative Matt Murray not only managed to represent him optimally with good performances, but he also stayed in goal in the remaining games of the promotion season 2002/03 instead of the now fit Oake - this included the crucial play-off game against Sheffield United in the Welsh Millennium Stadium , which ultimately ensured promotion to the Premier League .

The subsequent first division season of 2003/04 saw a new turn when Murray suffered a back injury and Oakes in turn enabled the return to goal. In a difficult season, at the end of which the Wolves finally relegated bottom of the table again, Oakes remained largely flawless, but was then replaced in a controversial decision in January 2004 by the new signing Paul Jones . Only in October 2004 did Oakes return to his original place, but his performances no longer showed the quality previously shown, so that a year later he was again replaced by the Dutchman Stefan Postma . Although the club management of Wolverhampton Wanderers refrained from continuing Postma after the end of the 2005/06 season, Oakes remained only the place on the reserve bench, as the new coach Mick McCarthy after Murray's recovery expressed his confidence in the young goalkeeper. After a total of 220 competitive games in eight years, the "Wolves" Oakes left in May 2007 for free.

Cardiff City (2007-08)

Oakes signed a one-year contract with Cardiff City in July 2007 and played here again under his ex-Wolves coach Dave Jones . There he was initially intended as a substitute player, but after a series of mistakes by Ross Turnbull on loan , Oakes was briefly "first choice" after his return to Middlesbrough FC , especially since only the "third goalkeeper" David Forde was available as a competitor. With the Dane Kasper Schmeichel , however, another loan player followed from Manchester City at the end of October 2007, who pushed Oakes onto the bench. He suffered the same fate again after Schmeichel's return to Manchester City with Peter Enckelman from the Blackburn Rovers , on whom the "Bluebirds" built until the end of the season. After a final "highlight" on the bench at Wembley Stadium, on which he watched his club's 2008 FA Cup final defeat by Portsmouth FC , Oakes left the club.

successes

• English League Cup : 1994, 1996

Web links

• Michael Oakes in the database of soccerbase.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Top Man" ( Memento from February 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (wolves.co.uk)
2. ^ "Cardiff capture goalkeeper Oakes" (BBC Sport)
3. ^ "Hasselbaink and Fowler could go" (BBC Sport)