Mes is only 24 not defendinng him but hes still got alot to learn himself. My point was some players dont get the same flack or praise as others players pople never remember when he kept us un games Leicester away. That save in the playoff semi at home when only 1-0 these are massive game changers.
Everyone wants the perfect keeper and they don’t exist especially in the championship. It’s like the Farke out lot. Easy to say get rid but not so easy to come up with a viable alternative who’d be interested in playing at our lower level
I get your point and admit I regularly say I don’t know whether to persevere or not as keepers have long careers and often peak around their 30s, so by selling we may have just developed him for the benefit of another club. But he has been first choice for years now and played plenty of games and the stats say he has one of the worst save percentages around. He still regularly gets beaten on his near post (I still have nightmares about the one that went through him in the first game against Portsmouth). The goal against Sunderland is just inexplicable, the more I watch it the worse it gets, might just be me but it doesn’t seem to be spinning so much that he can’t adjust and get his body behind it.
We have on paper a championship winning team. So you judge strengths and weaknesses relative to that. He is consistently ‘bottom half’ on key keeper stats whatever division he’s in. For me it’s not the clangers… all keepers make them. Just as I’m afraid to say all keepers make good saves so I’m not buying this ‘he once made a good save’ type stuff. My problem is he - by eye test and stats - lets more shots past him than the ‘average’ keeper. His positioning is often poor. He gets panned by some for not controlling his area and poor distribution. I think he’s improved in these respects a bit, but again it’s serviceable not outstanding. In the year we got relegated, in my view, meslier and struijk between them were the difference between us being relegated and mid table. Might sound harsh but they cost us heavily… whilst manager’s got the blame. Struijk is a confidence player and has his mojo back - at this level at least. Meslier? He’s just a weak link in the team in my view which is why he gets talked about… obviously keeper’s mistakes are costly and obvious so it keeps him on the discussion table. You want to have a keeper that you never talk about.
Im not debating his strengths and weakenesses just on about scapegoats some players we go for thre throat. some get the easy ride. Say Joseph or Rami miss a sitter friday it wouldnt be half as much flack Mes would get for a simple fumble or a dropped catch. He is a player with the noose now like Cooper,Bamford. Any little mistake its blowed up so much more thats my only point am making.
I see your Meslier and raise you a Tyler Roberts. Do take your point mate, player's can become public enemy's pretty quickly. Though, I actually think Meslier got an amazingly easy ride for a very along time. Now his card is marked everyone's a goalkeeping expert! My take is it's fair play to debate on here, but we should support them all in the ground. Hope Meslier get's a big cheer when he comes out on Friday.
Don't think he's suddenly proved everyone wrong or right. He's always been good going forward, (started his career as a winger) and always been not so good defensively. That got shown up more in the prem where there are better attackers and we had less of the ball. In a team, like us that dominates possession and he's expected to attack, he's great at this level. I suspect were we to get promoted, and if he were to stay, the plaudits would soon subside.
I kinda agree about some becoming a scape goat as opposed to others. I still think the stages of their careers has an impact on the criticism they get. It was Tyler Robert’s “personality” I think did for him, seem to remember people posting that he would stroll around giving it the big “I am” whereas you can see Joseph is trying so hard to desperately become the number 1 striker, however, if he keeps missing chances / sitters the fans will turn and say he’s not ready. Though Mes is still young in age he has played a lot of games and played in the premier league so you would expect his stats to be among the best in the championship, Since they’re not and its arguable we’d be top without the glaring errors some are losing patience. He will play Friday and I hope he is well supported by the crowd.
