While quality of opposition would affect Norman's goals conceded, they wouldn't affect the type of saves Norman made. Greggsy wasn't capable of making the sorts of saves Norman regularly made. Some of them were astounding. It was embarassing how MotD used to **** over Neville Southall weekly as the "Best in Division 1" when Norman was clearly superior. This wasn't "rose tinted" either. It was a common perception for anyone who had watched Norman play.
Cazorla probably takes better and sneakier free kicks than players who have not represented a top 10 football country. Wealands was a fine keeper, a superior second tier one, no more. Difficult to assess Norman's true abiliity as most of his time at City he was playing lower league larkers who we were often beating..' There didn't seem to be many Div 1 clubs courting him during his time at City though.
Ridiculous. Big nev was an absolutely outstanding keeper in the top division. If Norman was anywhere near him he would have been snapped up.
Tony Norman’s own words “I crawled away at the end of that session but Neville placed two cones a few feet outside both posts and began diving at them, one after the other. He was dedicated to his job. I reckon at one time he was the best goalkeeper in the world and was the reason why I only ever got five Welsh caps."
From those pages ... On leaving Hull City, he signed for Sunderland for a then club record fee. During his time at Roker Park, he helped them win promotion to the top fight in 1990 and also played at Wembley in the 1992 FA Cup Final, where they lost 2–0 to Liverpool. He played a starring role in that cup run, including Man of the Match displays away to West Ham and at home to Chelsea. He remains the only goalkeeper to have played for Sunderland at Wembley twice. He departed from Sunderland in the summer of 1995 to sign for Brian Horton (who had been his manager at Hull City) at Huddersfield Town. He remained in West Yorkshire for two seasons until he finally called time on his playing career in 1997 at the age of 39. During his lengthy career he played one season of top-flight football, when in 1990–91 he kept goal for a Sunderland side that suffered relegation on the final day of the season from the penultimate pre-Premiership First Division. He made 5 international appearances for Wales, usually serving as deputy to the legendary Neville Southall.
