That's been his problem, if he was consistently as good as he was on Saturday we wouldn't be in any of the bother we are in now and would've breezed last season.
Saying he's not better than Jak at any is just plain daft. I know everyone loves him because he beats his chest and saved a couple of awful Newcastle penalties but there's a reason why Phelan doesn't trust him to be our no. 1 and why on a tiny budget Phelan brought a keeper in first wasn't it? Re stats, I prefer WhoScored to Opta but they have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Here's a few examples based on average rating from last year Van Dijk was the best defender in the league, followed by Koscielny & Otamendi. Gueye (now Everton) was better than Fernandinho, Ramsey, Toure, Milner, Cabaye, Fabregas & Lallana to name but a few. Even though he was relatively unknown at Villa You have to take all stats with a pinch of salt If stats are so bang on why did Hodgson bother going to any club games before picking his squad in the Summer. He could have just gone online and picked the best 23. That's a fool proof way to get the best players isn't it?
Did you not read my post? Once again you've provided no answers to any of the key issues. I think it was OLM posted that the HDM did a poll after the Boro game on who should start in goal and it was pretty much 50:50 I said that facts can't be completely trusted, so you quote them.
I read it, dismissed most of it as nonsense. I think that the facts can be deemed slightly more reliable than your opinion.
It was never about Hodgson, he just happened to be the gaffer, it was about selecting players on stats. It's not nonsense. Why did both Phelan & Bruce deem it a priority to bring in another keeper? Why did neither trust him to be the no. 1? They see him in training every day According to your facts, VVD was the best centre half in the league last year but he never made the Team of the Year. And Gueye was also better than the above. You think that's accurate? I don't think Jak is rubbish nor do I think Marshall is anywhere near as bad people are making out.
Your (facts) for this season would say that the best three English centre halves are Curtis Davies, Michael Keane & Steve Cook
We're not talking about either of those players. We're talking about Jakupovic and Marshall - most of our fans have seen both play, most are of the opinion Jakupovic is the better of the 2. The defence has conceded less goals per game when Jakupovic has played. The defence is far more assertive and confident when Jakupovic is behind them in goal. Beyond the opinion of the majority of our fans that would prefer him in goal, there's also the statistics that support him being the better keeper. I'm sure Phelan is picking Marshall for good reason, he has to have at least one of his new signings on the pitch as the rest have simply looked a total waste of money.
I have to agree with this. Jakupovic, while having some difficulty in the past, has matured and shown that he's capable of being our number 1. He puts more effort in than Marshall seems to, which as a keeper goes a long way.
So now the facts only apply in some instances where you want them to prove your point? Jaks played 5 times for us in the league. 3 were against sides around us. Burnley and Swansea were garbage, Leicester couldn't finish, but on another day Vardy would've had a couple and Arsenal shipped 4 against us and that was the start of our defence not turning up. Against Burnley he got a crap rating even though he actually did nothing wrong, he was faultless and had pretty much nothing to do. Whereas against Arsenal he got a very good rating despite many fans believing it was his worst performance of the season. The stats don't make sense
Apart from watching the Jak closely and realising he is the far better keeper (at this present time), the only stats I need to know are as follows: Those stats are horrific from Marshall's perspective imo. And you can go on about Swansea being garbage, but they are a not bad team overall, they've finished 12,8,12 in the past 3 seasons and they have some really good players. Yes, they've had a wobbly start, but they probably will finish mid table again. Burnley garbage? Again, they've had some crappy results, but they've had some decent results too, and even beat Liverpool around the time we beat them. Leicester, EPL Champions, and a very very close call with Man Utd. Arsenal against 10 men for most of the match. So it's really how you look at the teams we played and I don't buy your interpretation of the teams Jak faced. What I do buy though, is the stats above, as they matter at the end of the season.
I was stating how they performed in the games against us. Burnley and Swansea were both very poor when they faced us. You can see from your stats that we just performed better at the start of the season. We were scoring more frequently and defending better. Not sure that was solely down to the Jak in goal though, he wasn't scoring for us and as he had pretty much nothing to do against Swansea and Burnley. Swansea were cut adrift until a few weeks ago, they're certainly a much better team now than when we faced them. One of the most telling stats is how much our goals have dried up since the start of the season. In your table we were scoring 1.2 a game, since then that's dropped to 0.56 (prior to the Palace). That's why we aren't picking up points, we simply aren't scoring enough goals. If we were scoring at 1.2 a game, we wouldn't be anywhere near the bottom 3 regardless of who was in goal.
Maybe it's the slow and ponderous release of the ball from the goalkeeper and the fact that the defence are playing that much deeper because they have no confidence in Marshall due to his inability to offer any hope of a clean sheet. I think that's more likely to be the reason the goals had dried up.
Almost as ridiculous as your belief that Marshall is the better keeper. Don't you have some T-Shirts to print?
I actually think they're pretty equal. I don't mind reasoned debate, djsowtz put a thoroughly good post above. But you dress your opinions up as facts and then add in personal digs when you no longer have any points to make which show your level of intelligence.
This is similar to many conversations I've had on here about certain members of our squad. There's a massive difference between playing well and having a better standard of ability. A player with less ability can impact a game, even a string of games when on form, but ultimately will fade (and fade massively) when that form goes away. A player with high ability levels will disappoint when they don't perform because of expectation, but will more often come good and make a massive difference and even when they don't play to their best, they're often much better than other players around them. So with somebody like Mason, who is a great footballer but is horribly out of form, will eventually come good, whereas somebody like Meyler, who lacks most forms of technical ability, can only go so far before he becomes a bit useless. They can have good games, but their ability will never be up there with other PL players and that sadly is what we need, PL quality players, not players who are Championship standard and have the odd amazing game. We saw it with Huddlestone; he had a great first season with us, then faded. He didn't lose his ability overnight, he just was out of form and Bruce took him out of the firing line. It did him good as he came back in and was more himself. Same this season, actually. Mason has rightly been dropped, but he will come back and he'll show why we paid the money for him, he has the ability. Jakupovic this season has been the better keeper. I think Marshall is better overall, but he didn't start great and I don't think he got over it. He's been steady at best, but there's clearly some sort of issue there and a spell out of the team often helps players recapture their best form. Sadly, it's not going to happen, if Jak was ever going to be in the team, it would've been straight after the Newcastle game. I didn't hear the question asked to MP as to why this was (it might've been, I just didn't hear it), as it seemed a pretty pertinent one.
