Deniz Mehmet jumps at Pars opportunity
Thursday, 24th Jun 2021“Any team wants players battling away and creating competition for places.”
Peter Grant’s latest addition to his playing squad is looking forward to fresh opportunities after just 27 first team starts in four years at Dundee United. The Turkish goalkeeper Deniz Mehmet said:-
“It’s always good to start a new challenge and turn to a new page in the book. I just can’t wait to get going properly.
“There were a few options down south but everything just clicked and seemed to fit for me. It felt right, I spoke to the manager he was really good at outlining where he wants it to go. It became clear that this is a club with good ambitions that I want to be a part of.
“I’ve been up in Scotland long enough to know that Dunfermline is a good club and know enough about the landscape up here to know that they have a really good backing and fanbase.”
The 28 year old made his professional debut in Turkey with Kayserispor and was there for four seasons until January 2016, when he signed for Falkirk. His Scottish experiences continued with Dundee United and a loan spell at Queen of the South but on signing for the Pars he expressed his delight to finally be part of the club.
“It has been in the pipeline for a little bit, back and forth a lot of the time but yesterday afternoon it just seemed to happen pretty much with the click of a finger. It was a slow buildup but yesterday was like 100 mph. I had to dash here and there to get everything sorted.”
Deniz had a year left on his contract at Dundee United but a lack of game time at the Tannadice club was key to his decision to leave the Premiership club:-
“I got into the team at Dundee United, I was playing, everything was good but got injured playing against Dunfermline ironically enough. I was away for a bit and when I came back I never really got the rhythm of playing games again.”
There are plenty of people at Dunfermline willing to remind Deniz of his bizarre injury and it was 8 months before the London born keeper recovered from that Anterior Cruciate Ligament, he continued:-
“I’ve already been reminded of that — apparently it was a somersault that I did! That is definitely not true. That’s something I’ll never going to be able to shake off. It was nothing to do with the celebration. It was a freak incident, a standard jump, land and step forward. Thankfully that’s behind me now.”
Three years after his freak injury Deniz has jumped again as Dunfermline give him the chance to get week-in week-out football again and challenge for the number one shirt at the Pars:-
“No disrespect to Fôn absolutely not, but it just wasn’t happening for me at United and this is a football decision. In truth, I would have liked to have played a lot more before now but, being a goalkeeper, I do feel like I have more time ahead of me.
“Hopefully, I won’t retire as early as an outfield player would and goalkeepers come into our peak at different times, so I’m hoping I have plenty of good years ahead of me.”
The new boy acknowledged that breaking into the first team will not be easy given the presence of Welsh international keeper Owain Fôn Williams.
“I only met Owain on Wednesday night. I knew of him, but had never met him personally. However, I’m sure we’ll get on fine. I’ve always had a good relationship with other keepers that I have worked with and it’s always good to have that challenge.
“We’ll push each other, bring out the best in each other — and that can only be good for the club. Any team wants players battling away and creating competition for places.”
Deniz claims that he will use his experience as a member of a Championship winning squad to try and achieve the same success at Dunfermline:-
“I know what it takes after being at United and winning promotion with them. We want to emulate that here. The year we went up at United was a good season, albeit it was never simple.
“You are never going to be on an upward slope all the time. There are ups and downs throughout the season, even in a title-winning team, and there’s no doubt that will be the same here. That’s just the way football is but if we can copy that season and get Dunfermline up to the Prem this time, it would be amazing.”
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