Gh, anyway, I think HG has some competition this year, the media are watching that De Gea closely, did you see him save that one with his nose at the weekend...just 'picked it' out of the air!
Don't forget the slip against Chelsea either at the Bridge, I was there at that one and in all honesty the ball really didn't cross the line and replays backed it up but the fact is it should never have been allowed to happen. Trying to imply that Bentley isn't as good a Messi there notso? How dare you!
The point of the thread was to point out that the criteria people apply to judge that Friedel is better than Gomes might not be the correct ones. Adebayor had two glaring misses on Sunday but no-one says that is any sort of reason to drop him: generally outfield players and especially attackers are judged on their overall play, not simply on errors. But if a goalie drops a few clangers (and Gomes does more than most) he gets all kinds of stick. I really don't think this is correct. It is perfectly possible that I'm wrong and Friedel is better than Gomes but to 'prove' that you need to do more than assert that Gomes gives away the odd goal by a mistake whereas Friedel doesn't. I actually think its quite a close call, and we ought to be glad that we've got three good keepers, but I truly think that we will concede more goals over a season with Friedel in place than with Gomes - I think there have been two or three so far which Gomes would have saved, and I doubt he'd have given away more than one.
Thanks for the kind words Spurf - but would you have rather had the careful Wilkins or the cavalier Hoddle? Just asking.....
I really think it's not just the case of comparing keepers,we almost all agree that Gomes is the better stopper and Friedel is the safe bet.But for a defender i know who i would rather have behind me and i truely think that is why Harry goes for Friedel everytime.So over a season a defence will let fewer goals in if they trust their keeper,which unfortunately ours didn't last season with Gomes in goal. This is surely why Harry got Freidel coz Gomes wasn't helping our defence or himself.
Spot on, Pat. Gomes' dodgy form was incredibly disruptive to our whole defence. They were second guessing every decision that he had to make and I was relieved when Cudicini got a run, in the end.
But it's supposed to be a team: if a player is changing the way he plays because he's lost confidence in another of the manager's choices - he's the one at fault. If Modric didn't pass to Adebayor next week because he missed three sitters on Sunday then Harry should drop Modric not Ade. Part of my reason for putting this thread up is that I think goalkeepers are judged in a different way and that is wrong.
Tbh, its difficult to say what the minimum set of attributes are to be a goalie, some would say height, it helps, but doesn't hinder Shay Given. Personally, I'd say shot stopping is second to command of the box. All professional keepers can save adequately, the other discipline, defence organisation is something else. At set pieces, your keeper should have the final word imo, for us it tended to be King or Daws, I hardly ever heard Gomes organise. For a large bloke he's a complete namby pamby, bravery is you want in your keeper, not sitting on the ground grinning your gumshield and pointing at your bollocks to the ref. This is the more important criteria I judge him on, not shot-stopping.
Very good points - let's see if we concede fewer goals from set-pieces this year. If so then that is a very good reason for preferring Friedel over Gomes - anyone got the stats so far?
The media have dictated that gomes is a calamity keeper, and stick to the story - it just doesn't get used so much in the numerous games he doesn't make an utter bollocks of something. Yet I've never seen Fabianski lambasted by journalists and pundits alike for him shoddy goalkeeping, let alone Kuszczak's performace at Blackburn that was as bad as any performance we've seen from Ben Alnwick.
I dread to think of how much stick Gomes would've got had he put in the performance that Cech did against Arsenal.
Exactly PNP, Cech was anbsolutely appalling, but I don't even recall MOTD mentioning how awful he was. The agendas that the media have are baffling at times, even to an old cynic like me. Routine shot after routine shot just flew past Cech, and barely an eyelid was batted. All the talk was about Terry's slip, which was nowhere near as crucial as Cech's incompetence. Gomes on a normal day would have saved three of those goals, no danger, and Chelsea win, not lose, which I would have preferred.
I hate to defend Terry, especially at the moment, but I don't even think that his slip was relevant. I don't think that he'd have caught van Persie anyway and the pass was the real balls up in that move. What was Malouda thinking?
I wouldn't want either of those in goal thanks PowerSpurs, but if I had to choose it would have to be Hoddle at least he was on our side.
