billytoffee
Player Valuation: £20m
Perhaps all that is needed is a bit of Deed Poll action to change his name to Howardovskipopodupulis
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Perhaps all that is needed is a bit of Deed Poll action to change his name to Howardovskipopodupulis
pfim
Player Valuation: £35m
I don't think that's untrue for some, quite frankly. Perhaps no one who has recently posted in the thread. But it's there.
For others, they seem to be past the point of rational thought. The guy can do no right in their eyes.
At any rate, he had a pretty good match yesterday.
somuchfun
Player Valuation: £40m
He hasn't performed well for ages and thus if he has an 'ok' game it just meant he did a job. He already has lost us several points this season by sucking and he's been a liability for a good one and a half seasons. He did well before that but he's not young any more and if you are crap for a prolonged period of time people take notice. Well, obviously unless they are the patriotic types that have blinders on. If he comes good again, then fine, but as a goalkeeper he has a big job to while trying to achieve that. If we were a poorer side he could make a clear positive difference, but as things stand now he hardly has a chance to save a game for us. While our defence might be not as solid as it has been in earlier seasons, can I remind you that he has not had a clean sheet in 17 games running now? Two clean sheets so far this season.
The player with the most premier league appearance in our squad is Neville. Does that make him the best player in the squad?
Appearance by themselves don't mean much. It just means the manager would rather play him then the other keepers available.
How the player plays in those appearances is much more telling and he is still a weak link for us, though he's not half as bad of late as he was earlier in the year (he bottomed out in early october and has been slowly getting better since. He's not doing a huge amount wrong right now though he's not quite at 2009 form yet either).
When he was keeping 15 to 20 clean sheets a year I was happy to praise him, but he's kept two in nineteen games this season. That's worse then any other keeper in the league. And crying racism and bias doesn't change that anymore it did when Vic wasn't scoring goals and people cried racism and bias against him. It wasn't that, the lad just wasn't performing. Now he is people like him. Same way they used to like Howard when he performed (and two or three years ago he was very good for us, in the Fa Cup final year he was excellent).
toffeestillidie
Player Valuation: £35m
I don't think anyone is crying outright racism or bias, I think the claim was just that people tend to focus more on his mistakes than his positive and intelligent plays, and that his nationality might influence that. You say that he was really great two or three years ago, and maybe most of the posters on here recognized that (Neiler excluded), but I visited Liverpool in the October after the FA cup final season, and speaking to a few people I did sort of see a inclination to look for fault when they were discussing him. It was strange hear calls to replace him after such a good season. Maybe the fact that they were talking to an American influenced that, or maybe it was all in my head, who knows?
But I think when people start crying out to sign a premier league keeper from a mid-table team it's a bit ridiculous. I can't speak for all of us, but I for one don't watch every one of Sunderland or Stoke's games, and while I do see most of the goals they concede it doesn't provide the best impression of how the keeper performs across 90 minutes. Undoubtedly Howard is suffering from poor form, but I think the goals conceded may also stem in part from our greater attacking intent.
Do we have a goalkeeper problem? United had a goal keeper problem last year. Arsenal had one for a few years. If they were all on the same team, I would pick Howard ahead of Sczeny and De Gea.
Maybe at the end of the season, I would be okay with parting ways with Howard. But I wouldn't want to buy an overpriced keeper like Mignolet or Begovic to replace him, I would want us to buy a young keeper from outside the league, or maybe lower leagues so we don't end up one of the links in the chain for the next Shay Given debacle. MLS has a lot of good keepers, players who typically don't have the best defenders in front of them but manage to keep out players the caliber of Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane on a regular basis.
Like every employee at the club, whether or not we should get rid depends on who we can get as a replacement and how much they'd cost.
I rate Howard less highly then you in that I don't think he's better then Sczeny or de Gea. I think, on current form, he's a midtable premier league goalkeeper who would be badly exposed if we did get into the CL. He had a good game against Newcastle, don't get me wrong, but there's players in our current team who you could see performing at the next level up and player's you can't and he's the latter, for me. If we got over taken by a billionaire, he wouldn't be offered a new contract put it that way.
The question is simply whether we can afford anyone better. Moyes has come up good before in situations like this, though.
Elong
The fire rises
I'd find it sad if that was people's reasoning for disliking him. I dislike him purely because he's got a bit rubbish. And I think he did his job yesterday nothing more.
Seamus Colemole
Previously deathbyropeandglass
As long as he's not making stupid attempts at saving goals he's an upper mid table keeper.
AussieBlue
Player Valuation: £500k
101 of keeping - cover your near post.
somuchfun
Player Valuation: £40m
Under Billy Bingham Everton conceded in 20 consecutive games in '75-'76.
The goal keeper at the time was William David Davies but he didn't feature in all the games in this row but he did concede in a 14 consecutive appearances. Is Howard's 18 a new club record?
The goal keeper at the time was William David Davies but he didn't feature in all the games in this row but he did concede in a 14 consecutive appearances. Is Howard's 18 a new club record?
Near post not good!
carolinablue232
Player Valuation: £70m
For the lack of clean sheets, complaining about Howard, and poor defending in general, we must realize we've conceded less than all but 5 sides this year. That goes with our more attacking style, and higher goal output. I could give two sh**es about keeping a clean sheet if we keep getting results. Some people just like to complain I guess.
Elong
The fire rises
Clean sheets are vital to goal difference, which could very well mean the difference between getting or not getting European football in a tight league this season. So I do give 2 ****s.
carolinablue232
Player Valuation: £70m
Winning 2-1 is the same as 1-0 for goal differential, and it actually helps with goals scored. We've chosen our style of play, and it's not conducive to clean sheets. It is conducive to results. Look at United. We can't have it all. We took 9 of 12 points over Christmas and people complained about not having a clean sheet. We won 5-1 today, and people complained about not having a clean sheet.
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