Tim Howard

[ilikecheese]

You're just an awkward bugger ! With you, defending Howard just makes you feel good for being contrarian and has nothing to do with your nationality.

But a sizable percentage of his defenders are American. It's certainly a higher percentage of the GOT demographic than you'd expect by the law of averages. There will be some anti-American posters who are biased against him for that reason, but they're probably few and far between.

Just like with Osman the criticism is over the top. That's the only reason I get involved.

I have no problem with actual criticism, but it's when it gets over the top and nasty, that I take issue with.

Any player or manager for the club (except Neville), shouldn't be treated with the level of disdain some do on here.

If that's awkward to you then so be it.

 

[Jags]

But in order for that to be true, we would have to be giving up an unusually high number of shots on target that are weak and go right at him. That isn't the case in my observation, and I can't think of any earthly reason it would be the case. Don't you think it's more likely that a lot of Everton supporters have an axe to grind with Howard after his admittedly terrible performances last season, and so are only seeing the negatives now?

Again, I doubt anyone here has been able to watch every Premier League match played by every club, so the only way to actually compare Howard to the rest of the keepers in the league is by looking at the overall numbers and trying to find the pattern in them. There isn't any way to twist those numbers to make Howard anything worse than an average keeper overall this season. If anyone on this forum has actually been able to watch all 170 Premier League matches that have been played this season (or even a majority of them) and could say that Howard is truly that bad relative to all of the other keepers, then I will shut up about it. Until then, stop telling me to judge him based purely on what you see, because you haven't seen everyone else.

Goalkeepers should do much more than shotstopping. In terms of this part of the game, I'd say he's pretty par with the league, not good, not bad. It's when high balls come in to play, crosses, corners etc. And we HAVE conceded an unusually set pieces.

 

[BoysInBlue]

Not trying to say sign kaspar, just highlighting the difference between our coward and a reasonable standard of prem keeper, he was pro active and aggressive. Instead of starjumps who usually stays rooted to his line and making some halfassed dive when the balls in the net

We should make a bid for Schmeichel, just to destabilise Leicester.

It would really rock the Kasper...

 

[mlyons]

You're just an awkward bugger ! With you, defending Howard just makes you feel good for being contrarian and has nothing to do with your nationality.

But a sizable percentage of his defenders are American. It's certainly a higher percentage of the GOT demographic than you'd expect by the law of averages. There will be some anti-American posters who are biased against him for that reason, but they're probably few and far between.

I don't think it's because he's American -- I've never been a fan of Landon Donovan, for example, and was very critical of his time at Everton (although that was before I started posting here). It might be that having some geographical distance from Liverpool lets some of the American posters look at things a little less emotionally, though. Plus, of course, everyone knows Americans love statistics.

 

[Woolly Blue]

Yes I'm American but not Texan, outside NYC. I didn't defend him last season, would've been hard to. I was a blue before Tim and will be after.

fwiw, after a pretty poor start to the season, I don't think Howard's done too bad and his form's improved since Robles played against Norwich. His faults are the same faults he's had for years, but they're getting highlighted by some poor defending.

But he's not going to improve and although he's not been anywhere near as awful as some think he has, he is fast becoming the player in our first choice eleven that I look at and think that's pretty much a priority for next time we splash some cash.

 

[mlyons]

Goalkeepers should do much more than shotstopping. In terms of this part of the game, I'd say he's pretty par with the league, not good, not bad. It's when high balls come in to play, crosses, corners etc. And we HAVE conceded an unusually set pieces.

High balls and crosses are definitely a weakness of Howard's. And set pieces seem like a bit of a weakness, too (although that's team-wide, not just Howard). Even with all those weakness, though, we are still right in the middle of the pack in conceding goals. If Howard were truly as awful as is made out, we'd be conceding at Newcastle levels.

 

[Woolly Blue]

If that's awkward to you then so be it.

Nah, it's not awkward to me you daft tit, I was taking the p.
Irony, bloody wasted on Americans

xxx

 

[sageyefc]

Nah, it's not awkward to me you daft tit, I was taking the p.
Irony, bloody wasted on Americans

xxx

wow

 

[mlyons]

But he's not going to improve and although he's not been anywhere near as awful as some think he has, he is fast becoming the player in our first choice eleven that I look at and think that's pretty much a priority for next time we splash some cash.

I doubt you'll find anyone (except maybe @Dithering Dougie ) who would argue against that. It's a big jump from a reasoned assessment like that to the abuse that gets spewed across this thread, though.

 

[strummer]

We should make a bid for Schmeichel, just to destabilise Leicester.

It would really rock the Kasper...

Damn.why didn't I think of that

 

[Chang Elephant]

Nah, it's not awkward to me you daft tit, I was taking the p.
Irony, bloody wasted on Americans

xxx

Oh Woolly !

 

[scratchnsurf]

But in order for that to be true, we would have to be giving up an unusually high number of shots on target that are weak and go right at him. That isn't the case in my observation, and I can't think of any earthly reason it would be the case. Don't you think it's more likely that a lot of Everton supporters have an axe to grind with Howard after his admittedly terrible performances last season, and so are only seeing the negatives now?

Again, I doubt anyone here has been able to watch every Premier League match played by every club, so the only way to actually compare Howard to the rest of the keepers in the league is by looking at the overall numbers and trying to find the pattern in them. There isn't any way to twist those numbers to make Howard anything worse than an average keeper overall this season. If anyone on this forum has actually been able to watch all 170 Premier League matches that have been played this season (or even a majority of them) and could say that Howard is truly that bad relative to all of the other keepers, then I will shut up about it. Until then, stop telling me to judge him based purely on what you see, because you haven't seen everyone else.

It's not just about comparing him with other keepers in the Premier League right now. Plenty of us have been around long enough to have seen a few top drawer keepers in our time and he seems to be getting further away from that benchmark.

The best keepers I have seen command their defence and that 6 yard box is theirs. This simply isn't the case with Howard and it isn't going to change. When through balls are put behind the defence, he should be taking command of those situations, but he waits to see what the defender is going to do. I've lost count of the times when the ball is put through and it should have been his ball all day long, but due to his poor starting position and hesitancy it is left for the defender to sort out the situation.

 

[USABlue]

It's not just about comparing him with other keepers in the Premier League right now. Plenty of us have been around long enough to have seen a few top drawer keepers in our time and he seems to be getting further away from that benchmark.

The best keepers I have seen command their defence and that 6 yard box is theirs. This simply isn't the case with Howard and it isn't going to change. When through balls are put behind the defence, he should be taking command of those situations, but he waits to see what the defender is going to do. I've lost count of the times when the ball is put through and it should have been his ball all day long, but due to his poor starting position and hesitancy it is left for the defender to sort out the situation.

I don't think anyone's trying to say tim is a top drawer keeper. Many people defending Howard agree we need a new keeper in the summer. Most are just responding to other posters who frequently post that Tim is the worst keeper in the prem and that we'd be in the CL if we had Begovic, Schmichael, etc. That's where the comparison comes in.

 

[Smodger]

Don't tell me there is people on this forum who defend Tim Howard awful keeper has been for years.

 

[ilikecheese]

Nah, it's not awkward to me you daft tit, I was taking the p.
Irony, bloody wasted on Americans

xxx