Tim Howard

[Robertor]

He's not very good at the moment, do we have the money to get a better goalkeeper atm? Not in my opinion.

Why don't you tell us all how much we've got in the bank then pal?

 

[Dithering Dougie]

He's inconsistent, never comes off his line for crosses, can't punch, isn't commanding enough, wasteful when kicking, causes absolute panic in his own area...... I could go on but I don't like dissing players just for the sake of it.... Bottom line, he's not good enough.

Are you talking about Howard, Migolet, Hart, Sczeney?...

All those problems can be thrown at every goalkeeper in the league besides Courtois and DeGea.

 

[toffeejack]

Be honest though. He's not very good and a club like Everton should have a better goalkeeper yeah?

for the majority of his career here he has been good enough. but not now, not in the last 3/4 seasons when we've needed to kick on from bouncing between 5th and 7th. that's his maximum level, same as moyes.

 

[ijjysmith]

for the majority of his career here he has been good enough. but not now, not in the last 3/4 seasons when we've needed to kick on from bouncing between 5th and 7th. that's his maximum level, same as moyes.

Couldn't agree more.

We've absolutely had our £3m worth out of him. And he's been fine.

But there's a time for everyone to move on (except Osman and Hibbert obviously).

 

[toffeejack]

he's also been lucky not to be sent off twice. i remember the game vs chelsea where i'm fairly sure he handeled one outside his box.

then there was that game a few weeks back when he got a tad lucky the ref got the correct decision when he jumped his belly onto the ball. we know how poor the refs are in this division, brainless panic moments like that could cost us dear.

 

[toffeejack]

Howard has had some poor games and also some good matches. He's pretty much no different than anyone on else on this years squad.

his only good match for me this season was wolfsburg at home. arguably against the same oppo away. but apart from that his good games are the ones he hasn't cocked up in.

people look at stats, i.e. the derby says he made 7 saves. i don't remember them having one meaningful shot on target.

you can't look at your keeper and put down plus points for saving the ones they should be saving. that's like complimenting a striker for having a shot on target.

 

[Dithering Dougie]

Difficult on the replacement one mate. There's loads of unrealistic ones I could name (Cech etc...) but to keep it real I'd be more than happy with David Marshall I think.

I see where you're going with the following questions. Money obviously.

And to an extent I agree. But if this keeps going on, mistake after mistake, then a new keeper will be as important as Lukaku was this summer.

I'll ask you a question. Say the MLS come calling for him. New York City for example. Not at all unrealistic. Who would you get to replace him?

If he was to move on i'd prefer a young keeper (I wouldn't touch Marshall because there's a reason he's playing championship football) that fits in with the rest of our up and coming young spine of the team.

To be honest I think Martinez put his eggs in the Robles basket and its backfired, he's not good enough and still can't challenge a inconsistent Howard. The fact he choose Robles last season makes me concerned about him replacing Howard unless we spend big to be honest.

But an under performing Howard is still down our priories list when you look at the big picture.

 

[Robertor]

At the end of the day there's a number of players here at the moment who have a maxed out glass ceiling of being able to finish 5th every year but no higher. The ones I'm thinking of are Howard, Distin, Jagielka, Pienaar, Osman, Gibson, Hibbert. Now I'm not saying that I don't rate any of these players and I think they're all brilliant players to have around but there has to be a transition now where some players leave and others from either different clubs or our youth teams come through. When we have the youth that we do I feel like in the next year it has to be vital that it gets used, Barkley needs to do more in games but everyone can see the potential and I'd love to see Martinez bring them through bit by bit and I'm sure that's what he'll start to do. But in relation to Howard, I'd give Joel a go to try and bring the best out of Howard by giving him a much needed shock and if that doesn't improve him then a new keeper has to be #1 priority in the summer considering it seems to be a pretty weak patch in the youth system that is blessed with fantastic central defenders and midfielders.

 

[CahillsCornerFlag]

I'll give you one stat though , the last three goals against us all should have been saved by Howard in my opinion.

You're spot on. If we had say, De Gea between the sticks, none of those go in. Though he had a very good year last year, he's done us very few favours this season. Roberto wont replace him though, and he obviously loves Joel, so I think we're stuck with what we've got.

 

[ijjysmith]

If he was to move on i'd prefer a young keeper (I wouldn't touch Marshall because there's a reason he's playing championship football) that fits in with the rest of our up and coming young spine of the team.

To be honest I think Martinez put his eggs in the Robles basket and its backfired, he's not good enough and still can't challenge a inconsistent Howard. The fact he choose Robles last season makes me concerned about him replacing Howard unless we spend big to be honest.

But an under performing Howard is still down our priories list when you look at the big picture.

I agree on some points mate.

The Robles thing is a massive balls up. I think a bit of it was why Howard was ok last season. He had a viable challenger forcing him to up his game. Now we all realise Robles is as much of a challenge as eating a boiled egg Howard can relax. And is doing.

An under performing Howard may well be down the priority list. But it's moving up that list at an alarmingly fast rate. How many more obvious goal conceding errors will it take?

 

[bignev23]

I'd get Shay Given in for 6 months or so, he was decent Shay for a while.

 

[Ruairi77]

I'd get Shay Given in for 6 months or so, he was decent Shay for a while.

Given is like a poorer version of Howard at the moment. Marshal at Cardiff would get my vote.

 

[Elong]

Ugh, the "who would you replace him with" argument.

We got the same when we wanted Moyes out.

There's a heap of great goalies out there that I have never heard of. I'd never heard of Mirallas before he joined us, and didn't expect Martinez to do so well. The issue at hand is the current keeper.

In saying that, someone educate me with some good keepers.

 

[Elong]

Schmeichel is a good start, he's playing well in a god awful Leicester backline.

 

[Seamus Colemole]

I agree on some points mate.

The Robles thing is a massive balls up. I think a bit of it was why Howard was ok last season. He had a viable challenger forcing him to up his game. Now we all realise Robles is as much of a challenge as eating a boiled egg Howard can relax. And is doing.

An under performing Howard may well be down the priority list. But it's moving up that list at an alarmingly fast rate. How many more obvious goal conceding errors will it take?

Really, a poor goalkeeper should be one of the first areas of improvement.

Howard makes a mistake, it costs us a goal. Pienaar(for instance) makes a mistake, chances are it doesn't. Goalkeepers go by different rules to outfield players, they have to be constantly at the top of their game really.

It's not like Howard has had a couple of poor games, the mistakes have been going on for seasons. Of course he's put in a hell of a lot of damn good performances for seasons as well. But a keeper needs to have damn good performances, and the ones that aren't need to be good performances. Not bad performances which is what he has been putting in with alarming regularity.