Buffon had two years experience of first team football with Parma before entering the Italy first team I'm not belittling Butland, as he has a great chance at a great future but he's 19 and has played NO football, there is no justification to start him yet he's got 20 years in him as a goalkeeper at this stage. And what have we got now, a 19 year old keeper that looked shaky at times and let a goal in. Last night was harmful to his development, he'd have learnt a lot more at the brum cup game He's got time, the rush on him will ruin him:
How on earth was last night "harmful to his development"? and how do you know he'd have "learnt a lot more" playing for Birmingham last night. Sorry, I fail to understand that and how you can quantify it so simply. I do agree there is no need to rush him, but I don't see how playing 45 minutes in a meaningless friendly where he realy didn't do that badly is going to damage him one iota? Joe Hart is going to be our number one for the next ten years so this issue is nowhere near as important as some people are making out if you ask me. Anyway, back to that "agreeing to disagreeing" drawer.... <slowly walks away from this thread, never to darken it's doors again>
i understood exactly what beefy meant. keeping him out of the limelight, getting his chance at club level (where he is not assured of starting games by the way), a chance to try and play his way into his new managers thoughts so he can actually play games on a consistent basis for a whole season hopefully. THAT will help his development - not playing 45 minutes for england and then sitting on the bench for the season with birmingham. of course, he may get his chance with his club regardless but by missing that cup game, a game where he WAS going to start, he misses out. that's not the lads fault - its roy's fault. he is a young lad who is getting literally no club football grounding. agree about hart being number one for the foreseeable future, but that, in many ways, makes it all the more nonsensical as we don't need him to make the grade yet. why the rush to introduce him? ruddy should have played the entire game and given him some confidence between the sticks representing his country. he SHOULD be the one called upon if anything happens to hart - not a kid who doesn't play for his club.
If i may interject, Butland obviously has talent and has shown that in the GB games where munky was quite correct in that he kept us in some matches. as for last night i don't think he did that bad, the goal was more down to bad defending (is anybody slagging of the defence?) than Butlands starting position, and a lot of people have forgotten that cross that he dealt with well with an out strtetched foot, most premier keepers wouldn't have dealt with that. Should he had even had the chance, well i ask the question would else to play a half? As for Ruddy, i thought he did really well, really good save low down but he didn't have that much to do, certainly not as much as Butland. I thought his biggest fault was his distrubution, what was the point in continuely kicking long down the middle to defoe? he is never going to win a header, the ball should have been going wider or starting from the back. only a small criticism though in the main i thought he looked good. On reflection i thought Roy learnt a lot, Ruddy should definately be understudy to Joe Hart and Butland should perhaps be the number 3 and that is the England goalkeepers sorted for quite a few years!
quick point about ruddy's distribution: john ruddy, for me, is an outstanding distributer of the ball. its one of his main strengths and is what propels him above the likes of foster, forster et al. they can all do the shot stopping but you need to be good with your feet these days too. he can kick capably with left and right foot, he prefers to play short but can also throw and kick with distance and accuracy. the times he had to go long last night were due to neither full back nor centre half giving him any options. in the first half, there were options aplenty to play short. on two occasions he held his arms out for options. two of his long kicks landed directly on the boot of adam johnson and one other right into the path of milner, so not too sure you can have a go at his distribution to be honest. so a couple of long kicks went astray - if you have no option to play short he's stuck! he should be number two for the time being - there is no other (available) keeper who is better than him. as i say, i hope butland will go on to great things - i do not think he is capable of great things yet.
Agree about most you've said on this thread Supers, especially this. He played it a couple of times to Defoe (which put a defender under pressure because it was a one on one situation if he ballsed it up) if they had gone through, everyone would be going crackers about him. And his goalkicks were pretty much straight to a player. So don't understand Guru's criticism of him there. Also about the Butland thing. The fact he played in the Olympics and won his first cap the media will now be all over him like a rash, you could see last night that it was the Butland show at times. A 19 year old keeper who's priority has to be reaching his potential does not need that. He isn't good enough to challenge Hart so why put the expectation on him now carried by the media. I don't think that will help him at all, so agree with Beefy about that.
i'm already finding myself feeling sorry for butland. its no criticism of him, just the situation he's been lumped in. of course it should be an honour to play for your country and he's hardly going to turn it down but as you say, the media are all over him - the pressure has been cranked up and its all totally unnecessary! let him find his feet with his club, see how he gets on - he might not get anywhere near his potential, yet now, he is almost being forced to perform on a bigger stage than he was ready for! ok, he won't play very often, only friendlies probably, but as i said at the beginning, he hasn't earned a place in that squad, so he shouldn't be in it.
A much more pertinent question, difficult to judge without bias, do we now think Ruddy has impressed enough to be considered England's number two?
i think he's certainly done enough to warrant being called up on a regular basis! obviously depends on how he performs for us during the season but hopefully he'll maintain his good form. i said last season i felt he was a better stopper than the england keepers who have decided, for one reason or another, to quit international football, such as foster, robinson etc, and he's definitely better than carson and green. i suppose that puts him 2nd in line i'm just pleased for him that he's done so well. great guy and lets nothing faze him
Everyone today said he looked good, Norwich fans and non-norwich fans. I said "He does that **** every week!"
The goalkeeping equivalent of Theo Walcott back in 2006. Butland's a bright prospect for the future but his not ready for big occasions yet, it was really evident with the mistake he made against South Korea for Team GB and last night he looked very shaky.
Shall we expect him to score a hat-trick in his next international appearance then? It might have buggered England up in 2006 when Sven wasted a squad place by picking him and not playing him but I wouldn't say it has done Walcott's career too much harm has it?
would you say walcott has reached the level that was expected of him back in 2006? i certainly don't. i personally don't believe he is even international quality but he gets in cos of his reputation (that old chestnut again!). he's only scored once apart from that hattrick - unbelievable really! everyone thought he was gonna take off after that but he still lacks quality in his game. indeed, if he lost his pace i doubt he'd even play in the premier division.
I'd say that's due more to the raft of niggling injuries that he's been unfortunate enough to pick up since bursting onto the scene which have stopped him having long runs in the first-team that have held him back rather than being picked for England too young!! Last year was his first proper season not blighted by injury and I wouldn't call 11 goals and 13 assists too shabby a return for a winger to be honest - but what do I know eh?
I agree with what you say there, but I don't think being picked for that World Cup helped him at all. I think he would be a better player if he wasn't made England's next big thing at such a young age and being so far off the England Senior team ability wise. Admittedly we will never know, but I think he still had a long way to go and it's difficult. He is still only 23 mind (which seems ridiculous, seems he has been around for ages) so can still become a top player.
Also, Lionel Messi has described him as "one of the most dangerous players I have ever played against" which ain't too bad an endorsement so he can't be doing that badly
this is purely down to his pace though. he has a low skill level and can't cross for toffee. he should be a far better player than he currently is. whether that is down to him being overhyped or not is of course up for debate but it can't have helped.
