Looking through players on our books,we seem to have a plethora of goalkeepers. Mark Swarzer 40yr ~ In my opinion one of the top 4 keepers we have had at the cottage,but ht 6ft 5in wt 13st 7lbs unfortunatly age is against him,and his distribution is now very sespect. David Stockdale 27yr ~ Cannot decide about him as our future,will he, wont he, he will be 28 at the ht 6ft 3in wt 14st start of next season, and seems a little overweight. Neil Etheridge 23yr ~ not impressed the few times I have seen him play,seems to be out of position ht 6ft 2in wt 13st 6lbs a lot, making him suspect to lobs. Marcus Bettinelli 20yr ~ son of Fulhams goalkeeping coach,not seen enough to comment.but would like ht 6ft 4in wt 13st 4lb to se him on loan with a league club,has suffered a few past injuries now ok Jesse Joronen 19yr ~ just won his first international cap for Finland,greatly admired by Neami. Seen ht 6ft 5in wt 13st 9lbs him many times, great command of his area,with acurate throwing distribution like Joe Hart, another who should be on loan to a league club. Max Oberschmidt 18yr ~ a regular with the acadamy agile with good positional sence,one for the future ht 6ft 3in wt 13st 6lbs highly rated by the German youth FA. Csaba Somogi, could be leaving at end of season, and our under 16 keepers,i feel to young to rate. It will be interesting to see if any of the above have made it in the next 5/7 yrs. Lets hope one of them can be compared with MS,VDS,& TM.
For me a goalkeeper is probably one position where experience counts the most. But there does come a time when age will catch up with you, and Schwarzer has come to that point where I think he made need to be the back-up keeper. So an ideal keeper for me would be 30+ and a lot of experience in major leagues. So I'm afraid Stockdale falls short in having not had much experience in major leagues for his 28 years, he's a good keeper, but is still wanting in not having played consistently under pressure. The younger keepers unless they are exceptional will be of the same elk, but a lot of that is down to the standard of Reserve football, and in todays game they need to be loaned out to progress. One thing that the new type of keeper needs to perfect is his distribution of the ball from kicks and pass backs. To me Schwarzer is an old style keeper in kicking to areas without accuracy.
And 16 year old Magnus Norman who made his debut for the U18s in our 2-1 win over Chelsea back in December.
The mystery of goalkeeping strategy deepens as Mark Schwarzer is apparently negotiating an extension to his contract: "Mark Schwarzer has revealed that initial talks on a second contract extension at Premier League Fulham have been staged as the veteran goalkeeper bids to retain his place at the football summit." The full story is at this link: http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1140388/
I can understand Marks comments,and as previously stated he has been one of the best we have ever had. But comes the summer recess we need to be looking at bringing in a quality keeper. and not QPRs Ceasar, he cant catch.
I agree, Ros, we need to bring someone in at the next transfer window. Hopefully we can revive the Stekelenberg deal.
Missing out on Butland, presumably because we assumed Stekelenburg was signed and sealed, was a mistake. That said, we've got a very decent set of youngsters - the favourites being Etheridge (me) and Joronen (rosc). The problem is, both are a couple of years short of the relevant experience.
I disagree, Cottager. The fact that we've got such promising young keepers is why I wanted us to go for someone like Stekelenburg rather than Butland. An experienced keeper who is likely to hold down the jersey for 5 or so years gives the youngsters time to develop and for one of them to potentially take his place. A keeper as young as Butland has the potential to play for 15 years, which would be pretty dispiriting for the young keepers behind him in the queue. I think the only way we should have gone for Butland was if we didn't have any confidence in Etheridge, Jorenen, etc. Butland is a great signing for a club that doesn't have a lot of quality in their own young keepers, not one with several bright prospects. Of course, if we'd signed Butland there's every chance that in a few years one of the big boys would be trying to lure him away - there's no guarentee that he'd stay for 10 or 15 years, but I think it would have sent the wrong message to the youngsters.
The fact that we were in for Butland and the fact that Stockdale keeps getting loaned out perhaps means that Jol doesn't have faith in our young keepers. The times I have seen Etheridge play he has not exactly wowed me to be honest.
Signing a new keeper suggests Jol doesn't think they're ready now. Signing someone as young and highly rated as Butland suggests he doesn't think they'll ever be good enough. I wasn't suggesting Etheridge (or Jorenen, or whoever) was ready to step into the first team right now.
I don't think that's strictly true, if Jol wanted rid of Stockdale he'd be sold rather than loaned out.
This is a serious post. For a couple of seasons Iâve wondered if Schwarzer is short-sighted. Iâm basing that on two things. Firstly, the number of goals he has conceded from shots of more than 25 yards out. I donât have actual numbers and although Iâm pretty certain itâs fewer this year than in the previous three years, Iâd argue that has something to do with the opposition finding it easier to break through our defence this year. Secondly, his goal kicking. In another (much earlier) thread I suggested the problem was in his style of kicking, where he cuts across the ball and puts a lot of back spin on it. However Iâve watched more closely in recent matches and Iâm now wondering if it isnât also to do with him not clearly seeing from a distance. If you watch when heâs kicking long, he takes quite a time and appears to pick the player he wants to reach but invariably, while the general direction is okay, he over-shoots that player. If it happened now and again Iâd put it down to accuracy of kicking but, as we well know, nine times out of ten he misses the target player by quite a margin. [ânine out of tenâ is probably a wee bit of an exaggeration - his actual stats show that only 51.8% of his kicks are successful but that also includes short passes.] As I said it's intended as a serious point (so no Specsaver jokes please!) and to try and understand/suggest why his kicking is so poor.
Indeed, C58, some of his longs kicks are quite an embarrassing spectacle (arf!). Seriously though, that makes sense. Perhaps Kappa can make him some glasses like Edgar Davids has (I'm done now).
