Lowest point in English goalkeeping

[Albion Rob]

There's an element of truth in that, but I don't totally agree.

There are some fine English individuals coming through, but they, and the failed generation before them, have been brought up on 'English' football, which is an inferior, superseded form of the game. As has been proved, it doesn't matter how good your players are, if the system you are playing doesn't suit your style OR it's being counter-acted by a better system, you're not going to get anywhere.

I'm not certain about that TLO. If by 'English' football we mean Premier League football then it's hard to reason away the fact that the Premier has been heavily represented in the Champions League final for most of the last decade, dominating the semi finals stage on many occasions too. To be fair to ManUre (and I hate being fair to them) they have come up against an incredible Barcalona side twice in the past three years. I seriously think they could be candidates for the best team ever when we look back over time.

For me the problem isn't necessarily the 'English' style, it's the way we get to a major tournament and then try to copy the style of teams we clearly don't have the attributes to copy. The amount of times Terry and co passed the ball about at the back in the last World Cup, trying to emulate some sort of possession game that the Spanish play, only for us to give the ball away cheaply or just go down some blind alley or other and eventually concede possession.

I'm not advocating just keeping pumping the ball up top to a big fella but I think the sort of football we played in Euro 96 (albeit with players of genuine standing such as Gascoigne, Ince, Shearer and Seaman) is perhaps a bit closer to what we should be looking for. A high pressure, get the ball forward, run at your man and try to service the strikers style rather than the clever and impressive patient, passing game then move quickly when the opportunity opens. As you've rightly said, our kids just aren't brought up on that.

I'd sooner see us play a more direct, aggressive style which takes more chances than the type of possession game we tried in South Africa which broadly got us nowhere. Nothing wrong with the possession game itself as as Gus has proved, to a point you train good players to be comfortable on the ball and to hold on to it until they can quicken it up when an opportunity presents itself (actually, I think Gus has got us playing a beautiful mix of the aggressive English style and the slick passing game) but I think when you get to the very top you have to recognise that players who are used to playing that style will be better at it than players of broadly equal ability who are trying to imitate it. There's no shame in that and I can't say it would win us tournaments but it would be better to go out having given it a good go than the limp wristed way we tried to imitate more technically gifted sides and failed just over a year ago.

 

[Fawkesy]

Its a massive worry. If we lost Joe Hart to who would we turn?
When i was growing up we had Shilton, Woods, Seaman, Flowers, Martyn. All class goalkeepers who would walk into most Premier League teams, Well maybe not the Palace bastard Martyn.
Spain have a wealth of goalkeeping talent to the point Barcelona's Victor Valdes has no more than a handfull of caps & Germany has six/seven international quality g/ks.
Is it another problem we can blame on the failings at grassroots level or the Premier League?

Pepe Reina cant even get a game!

 

[Pavilionaire]

I think we've already passed the lowest point in English goalkeeping, that being WC2010. That idiot Capello should have made Hart his No. 1 before the start of the tournament, not after it.

As for good young keepers coming through we've thought Foster was going to be class but he isn't and Fergie was right to get rid.

Anyway, the fact remains very much as you were in 2010, i.e. you can play who you want but the only way we'll ever achieve anything is if Rooney is up for it and plays for us like he does for Man Utd - basically like Argentina c. 1986.

 

[Kumquat]

This tread has the be the biggest load of shit ive ever read on here! Frankie Fielding is considered one of the best young English goalkeeping talents. He played the majority of England U21's game in the Euros.

If you think its a sad day whn Rob Green is replaced by a genuine young talent then you know shit all about football. Rob Green is a very ordinary Premiership goalkeeper who will never be first choice, he has proved he cant handle the pressure of international football (see world cup). Why would u not give someone else the chance who has all the qualities and credentials to become a future no. 1.

All this bollox about foreigners ruining the state of our goalkeepers. Are your serious If English goalkeepers had the quality required to play in the prem and hold down number 1 spots in their teams then they would. But alot of them arent good enough, stay with the big clubs until theyre 23/24 all the time going on loan to various lower league clubs and then theyre sold to the Championship or lower. Hence why the majority of Prem teams have foreigners in between the sticks. FFS one of our brightest talents in recent years Ben Foster decided to retire to prolong his club career. I mean seriously!!!! Hes a goalkeeper for f*** sake, how much strain is there on his body that the standard 10 or so games each year will ruin him!! JOKE

Furthermore that idiot is now playing in the championship. Is that down to the influx of foreign goalkeepers

Fact is United went out and spent 20 odd million on a new young goalkeeper. Would they have preferred to buy English, probably, but was there any talent around worth that money or with the potential NO. Is that because too many foreign goalkeepers NO. Foreign goalkeeper have been brought in because they are better than the young English ones who are in the game. Simple as that!

Agree completely - would certainly rather have him and stockdale than Rob Green. The latter has proved himself - not up to it either in ability or temperament.

 

[Acker79]

For me, it's more a coaching issue than a skill issue, though the latter is, of course, important.

As well as needing a revolution in fan attitudes, as you later say, I think the players also need to accept this.

Look at the fuss that gets made when Sven and Capello tried to get our players out of the box. Moving them around a bit. The fuss that is made when Gerard starts wide.

The players themselves seem not to want to give their all unless used in their "proper positions". Yes, they need to be coached, but if these players are going back to their clubs next weekend where the team is built around them playing in their favoured position, why should they give their all learning a new role for this one game against some minnow country, and the big countries aren't the games to be trying out new tactics...

 

[The Large One]

I'm not certain about that TLO. If by 'English' football we mean Premier League football then it's hard to reason away the fact that the Premier has been heavily represented in the Champions League final for most of the last decade, dominating the semi finals stage on many occasions too. To be fair to ManUre (and I hate being fair to them) they have come up against an incredible Barcalona side twice in the past three years. I seriously think they could be candidates for the best team ever when we look back over time.

I agree about the Barcelona side. They are something for everyone else to strive for, not a freak occurrence never to be repeated.

I don't mean 'Premier League'.

I'm talking about (usually) English players who came through English academies being taught a certain way. While it's true Manchester United has nurtured some excellent individual players over the past 20 years under Ferguson's coaching team, most clubs nurture their talent for playing their way or, if the case of the lower clubs, the forlorn hope of selling someone to a bigger club for a huge sum of money. 'Foreign' players are seen as more technically gifted because of the way they are coached in their formative years. The FA still has to catch up with that in its coaching style.

Of the clubs you talk about in the latter stages of the European competitions, how many of those regular players are/were English? No more than four per side?

Also, the method of the way you wish to see football played (what I would call the 'English' way) is completely the OPPOSITE way many successful teams are adapting to. The method you advocate is percentage football, territorial football - as opposed to possession football - and has already been found hideously wanting if you can play the latter way well.

Incidentally, I didn't see us try to play possession football in South Africa. Quite the opposite in fact.

 

[The Large One]

As well as needing a revolution in fan attitudes, as you later say, I think the players also need to accept this.

Look at the fuss that gets made when Sven and Capello tried to get our players out of the box. Moving them around a bit. The fuss that is made when Gerard starts wide.

The players themselves seem not to want to give their all unless used in their "proper positions". Yes, they need to be coached, but if these players are going back to their clubs next weekend where the team is built around them playing in their favoured position, why should they give their all learning a new role for this one game against some minnow country, and the big countries aren't the games to be trying out new tactics...

In which case, the current crop of established England players are already a lost cause, and we could only hope to coach the next generation of players from a young age in methods more technical and less physical.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Intersting comment from Fergie in a recent Four Four Two. He said Barca are in constant contact with their kids on their books.

Apparantly in the UK you are only allowed to do 16hrs coaching a week. On the continent its like 35hrs or more.

 

[Albion Rob]

I agree about the Barcelona side. They are something for everyone else to strive for, not a freak occurrence never to be repeated.

I don't mean 'Premier League'.

I'm talking about (usually) English players who came through English academies being taught a certain way. While it's true Manchester United has nurtured some excellent individual players over the past 20 years under Ferguson's coaching team, most clubs nurture their talent for playing their way or, if the case of the lower clubs, the forlorn hope of selling someone to a bigger club for a huge sum of money. 'Foreign' players are seen as more technically gifted because of the way they are coached in their formative years. The FA still has to catch up with that in its coaching style.

Of the clubs you talk about in the latter stages of the European competitions, how many of those regular players are/were English? No more than four per side?

Also, the method of the way you wish to see football played (what I would call the 'English' way) is completely the OPPOSITE way many successful teams are adapting to. The method you advocate is percentage football, territorial football - as opposed to possession football - and has already been found hideously wanting if you can play the latter way well.

Incidentally, I didn't see us try to play possession football in South Africa. Quite the opposite in fact.

Sadly I think Barcalona are a freak occurance. I agree that it would be nice if everyone strived to play football more like them but the concentration of brilliant players at that club at the moment means (in my view) it is probably quite unlikely. Unless, of course, we had another such concentration of the world's best players at one club.

I agree wholeheartedly about the history of youth coaching in this country and I understand it is being addressed although clearly not quickly enough. Maybe foreign players are seen as more gifted because they are more gifted. Surely it stands to reason that if the culture in the PL is to spend a great amounts of money money cherry picking players from across the globe then English kids are going to struggle. I suppose it's a bit like if the albion only recruited players from Sussex but then suddenly changed their policy to recruit from the rest of the UK. Inevitably there would be some of the better Sussex lads in the side there would be players from around the country playing at the 'expense' of local lads. If you have a larger pool to choose from (although in reality the pool was always there but perhaps the money or the will was not) then it seems inevitable that local players will miss out.

You're talking in absolutes in terms of style. If a team was absolutely world class at playing the 'English' way - which to me means moving the ball forward early as opposed to punting long balls up the top, to be clear - then I think they would succeed. Would they beat the current Spanish side? Probably not but I would put that down to the excellent of the current Spanish side over and above the different styles. Spain showed they can adapt and 'mix it' in the WC2010 final.

In the 2010 World Cup, the amount of times we passed the ball aimlessly about at the back was unreal. No cutting edge, no movement up ahead, no inspiration. I guess that's where we are at the moment when it comes to trying to play posession football. Plodding about trying to emulate a style we are not familiar with (not ingrained in our football culture) and don't have players who are good enough to play it.

Nothing wrong with trying to play like Spain (or the Albion) but sadly I think we need to be more pragmatic with regard to the talent we have at our disposal. Sorry, I know that sounds negative.

 

[Bald Gull]

I always thought Chris Kirkland was going to be the long-term successor to David Seaman - shows what I know!

 

[Working class pride]

In my lifetime English keepers have been over rated and it was a press myth of a great English goalie. Shilton? Useless in Euro 1990. Clemence was not much cop either (let goals through his legs against Scotland) and these are the keepers from the era that people hark back to. Always thought the great English keeper thing a myth.

 

[Gritt23]

The decline started since the retirement of Shilton. He's never been replaced.

And it has not been helped by the media attention that slates a young keepers reputation for his first mistake to the point where they are dismissed for good.

While Robinson could never recover from the ball that went under his foot Carson will never recover from the goal at Wembley that he conceded.

Rewind 30-35 years, and take a look at the soft goal Shilton let in at home to Poland in that infamous 1-1 draw. A few years later Clemence let in a howler against Scotland. But we didn't cast either aside on the strength of one mistake.

All keepers make them from time to time, but I have never known us be less forgiving.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

I don't agree with the argument that English players are inherently less technically skilled than other nations. I think it's a tired and rather simplistic viewpoint. As has been said English teams over the past decade or so have regularly reached the semi's and finals of the champions league. Yes There's only been a few Englishmen per team but that is besides the point. How many German or Italian or Spanish or French or Dutch or any other national players are in those line ups? In my opinion the only type of player that we don't seem to have is the creative forward- a messi/zidane/modric/zola/bergkamp type player.

The problem for English football as I see it is essentially twofold. Firstly, it's the coaching. Talented players are taught to play in a certain 'English' way a percentage style of football. They do it day in day out at their clubs as that's what gets results in the English leagues. It's not that they are incapable of playing any other way-the magnificent work Poyet has done with the Albion should be all the evidence you need to see that. It's that English football has a set mentality from grass roots up to the pro game, including on the terraces and sidelines.

The second problem as I see it is related to the first. At international level we play a mish mash style. We try to play a slow, passing game but it very rarely works. Why? Because we're playing against players who play that same style week in week out for their clubs. If two teams consisting of broadly equal individual ability play each other, team A in a style it is accustomed to and team B in a style that they're not then clearly team B is going to struggle. International football doesn't afford the manager time to drill into the players a new way of playing.

I don't think we should try to emulate Barcelona or Spain, by the time we master that football would have moved on again. The team I think we should look to is the German team of the last world cup. I think they have many attributes that we can copy fairly easily. They were comfortable on the ball as all teams should be but when they attacked they were direct, pacy and incisive. It wouldn't take a massive cultural sea change either to go from where we are to how the Germans play. It'd still need a greater emphasis on keeping the ball and being comfortable in possession wherever you are on the pitch but it'd utilise a number of the basic traits that we have in English football. The biggest thing we need to do is to start creating our own creative attackers. And trusting them. We've not really had anyone suitable for that role since Letissier retired.

 

[Albion Rob]

I don't agree with the argument that English players are inherently less technically skilled than other nations. I think it's a tired and rather simplistic viewpoint. As has been said English teams over the past decade or so have regularly reached the semi's and finals of the champions league. Yes There's only been a few Englishmen per team but that is besides the point. How many German or Italian or Spanish or French or Dutch or any other national players are in those line ups? In my opinion the only type of player that we don't seem to have is the creative forward- a messi/zidane/modric/zola/bergkamp type player.

The problem for English football as I see it is essentially twofold. Firstly, it's the coaching. Talented players are taught to play in a certain 'English' way a percentage style of football. They do it day in day out at their clubs as that's what gets results in the English leagues. It's not that they are incapable of playing any other way-the magnificent work Poyet has done with the Albion should be all the evidence you need to see that. It's that English football has a set mentality from grass roots up to the pro game, including on the terraces and sidelines.

The second problem as I see it is related to the first. At international level we play a mish mash style. We try to play a slow, passing game but it very rarely works. Why? Because we're playing against players who play that same style week in week out for their clubs. If two teams consisting of broadly equal individual ability play each other, team A in a style it is accustomed to and team B in a style that they're not then clearly team B is going to struggle. International football doesn't afford the manager time to drill into the players a new way of playing.

I don't think we should try to emulate Barcelona or Spain, by the time we master that football would have moved on again. The team I think we should look to is the German team of the last world cup. I think they have many attributes that we can copy fairly easily. They were comfortable on the ball as all teams should be but when they attacked they were direct, pacy and incisive. It wouldn't take a massive cultural sea change either to go from where we are to how the Germans play. It'd still need a greater emphasis on keeping the ball and being comfortable in possession wherever you are on the pitch but it'd utilise a number of the basic traits that we have in English football. The biggest thing we need to do is to start creating our own creative attackers. And trusting them. We've not really had anyone suitable for that role since Letissier retired.

Thank you for making the point I was bumblingly trying to make far more eloquently than I could ever have wished it!

I agree about missing a creative midfielder/attacker. I hope Wilshere will provide a dimension we have basically been missing since Gascoigne - a player who can take someone on using a change of pace or a bit of skill, pull them out of the game for that couple of seconds, draw someone else in and then release a killer ball for the strikers. All these years of watching Gerrard and Lampard make the notion of a skilful English central midfielder seem like a distant memory.

 

[The Large One]

In my lifetime English keepers have been over rated and it was a press myth of a great English goalie. Shilton? Useless in Euro 1990. Clemence was not much cop either (let goals through his legs against Scotland) and these are the keepers from the era that people hark back to. Always thought the great English keeper thing a myth.

You pick out two instances in two careers totalling 35 years between them...

Shilton and Clemence (and Gordon Banks before them) were excellent keepers and both raised the bar of goalkeeping qualities in terms of crossing, saving (not just shot-stopping), communication, distribution and so on. Their legacy has been to improve what was required of goalkeepers at a time when those skills were not employed so fully by other goalkeepers across Europe.

 

[Bald Gull]

You pick out two instances in two careers totalling 35 years between them...

Shilton and Clemence (and Gordon Banks before them) were excellent keepers and both raised the bar of goalkeeping qualities in terms of crossing, saving (not just shot-stopping), communication, distribution and so on. Their legacy has been to improve what was required of goalkeepers at a time when those skills were not employed so fully by other goalkeepers across Europe.

I would also strongly disagree that Shilton was useless at the 1990 World Cup. I remember him keeping us in numerous games in the tournament. Made one mistake all tournament I think - in the 3rd/4th place play-off (when it didn't matter). Other than that, he was faultless throughout.

 

[The Large One]

I would also strongly disagree that Shilton was useless at the 1990 World Cup. I remember him keeping us in numerous games in the tournament. Made one mistake all tournament I think - in the 3rd/4th place play-off (when it didn't matter). Other than that, he was faultless throughout.

Oooh, he could have done better with West Germany's goal in the semi-final, but that's because we would have expected him to.

But I take your point.

 

[Bald Gull]

Oooh, he could have done better with West Germany's goal in the semi-final, but that's because we would have expected him to.

But I take your point.

I've always argued that that goal wasn't his fault - just one of those fluke goals which made him look out of position (when for any normal shot, he would have been absolutely fine). Do realise that I may be in the minority though!!

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

And he was too slow to save any of the spot-kicks!

 

[Albion Rob]

And he was too slow to save any of the spot-kicks!

Had we used all our subs? If not, maybe we should have brought big Dave Beasant on - would have put the wind up the West Germans if nothing else. That said, I recall they hit four very good penalties that night....

Someone made a point about the scrutiny keepers are under these days. I think that's a fair point but I suppose what marks great out from good is the way they react to the criticism.

On Robinson, I always felt a bit sorry for him over the Croatia goal - perhaps he should have taken a touch first but it just hit a divot and bounced over his foot. Not like a routine catch that went through his hands. And if Neville had passed the ball anywhere other than towards his own goal....