Nothing, it seems, is more fickle than the career of a professional footballer – especially if he is a goalkeeper.

Just ask Bristol Rover's Steve Phillips and Bristol City's Adriano Basso, two frustrated members of the shot-stopping fraternity.

Both have been residing miserably for most of this new season on the substitutes' bench. Their futures appear to be uncertain. They have been out of favour with their clubs, as their representatives have no doubt been working overtime to find them new homes.

Phillips has actually just gone off to Shrewsbury on loan for a month. We must wait to see whether it leads to any permanency and an overdue pattern of reassurance for him.

He had arrived at the Memorial Stadium by way of Ashton Gate – a not wholly unfamiliar route in the past – where Gary Johnson had relegated him to what was a demoralising No 2 status. In fact, he made an immediate impact, leading to suggestions that Rovers had encouragingly sorted out their indeterminate goalkeeping worries.

His team-mates were inclined to joke that he was a bit of a moaner. At press conferences after a Rovers defeat, he wasn't inhibited about expressing a few stinging comments about defensive frailties.

But this season he has been seen disconsolately kicking his heels, waiting, and we assume hoping, for his recall.

Phillips' personal gloom has been equally matched by that of Basso, a Brazilian player of balletic skills, occasional high-risk endeavour and improving linguistics who, not so long ago, was picking up match awards and looking one of the best keepers in the Championship.

Our insider knowledge of his changing attitudes and suddenly emerging wish to move on is limited. It had been expected that he would have gone from Bristol by now. Goalkeepers in particular suffer from inactivity. They need to be playing and tested regularly in serious competitive games. What they hate is moping, remote from the action, as dug-out spectators and little else. We have no way of knowing whether Basso is already regretting his differences with a club whose fans had warmed to him and those obligatory dives.

City and Rovers, as this past week has again shown, have made modest starts.

There have been selection problems because of illness and injuries. But there was no obvious sign of a place for either Basso or Phillips. Dean Gerken and Rhys Evans were the preferred goalkeepers.

As an increasing number of clubs struggle to balance the books – and we are not thinking of those headed by foreign owners with sugar daddy inclinations – loan deals will remain the short-term solution. Yet not too many "fringe" players like the system. It means extra travelling and being away from home. There is also an unfair psychological stigma attached, a seeming temporary convenience about being a player on loan.

It is almost an act of sacrilege to take any of the glory from Andrew Flintoff after his typically good-natured, if enforced, exit from Test match cricket. He is much liked by the spectators and by his colleagues in the dressing room. He's blessed with an earthy, classless manner which has always lifted his colleagues

Yet has he also been excessively praised? His statistics are good rather than exceptional. Would a cold, objective Aussie selector, for instance, have risked him for the last Test?

This was a swaying and memorable series. My hat-trick of awards go first to Andrew Strauss for the thrust and intelligence of his captaincy and batting. He proved to his detractors that his privileged public school background could still reveal a suitably tough front – to complement the amiable personality.

Second comes Ricky Ponting, given a combative time by the irritating Barmy Army. Despite a few leadership flaws, he accepted defeat with rare grace. He may be the fall guy when he returns home – and that will be undeserved.

And my third choice is plucked, maybe to some surprise, from the commentary box. Phil Tufnell, once such a maverick figure, has turned into a wise, versatile broadcaster. All that ... and Strictly Come Dancing to follow.