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Neville Southall and other goalkeepers

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100% we do it all across the team imo.

I mentioned this in the DCL thread on how Lukaku aside we have been starved of any prolific CF since the 80's & combined with David Moyes' obsession of having his strikers "run the channels" our fans generally have a lower bar when it comes to our strikers being prolific regularly and praise them more for running around alot (see Strac, Naismith etc.) Even Lukaku and Yak were often slated by a minority for being "lazy" "not running around enough".

Not turning it into another DCL debate but we definitely judge current players based off whats gone by before them in their respective position.
 
You need a good keeper to go anywhere as a good side. It's more than a coincidence that our last trophies came with Big Nev, and our highest PL position (and what should have been Champions League qualification) came with Nigel Martyn. Our two best keepers of the past 40 years.
 
Groucho said:
Firstly to set my stall out, I went to my first game when we were title holders and have been lucky enough to see Neville Southall at his world class best. The best goalkeeper in the world and in my opinion, the best goalkeeper there has ever been.

Now as a result, do you think we judge subsequent goalies unfairly as we hold them up to a standard they can never reach, or should we expect them to reach those standards?

Since the great man we’ve only had a couple, literally, who could even lace his boots in Nigel Martyn and Tim Howard. I have left out the current custodian of the #1 shirt purposefully.

I am actually behind Jordan Pickford, he’s a decent young goalie.

My question is, do we hold goalkeepers up to an impossible standard or should we expect them to reach that level?
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What about Paul "Gezza"Gerrard Groucho?;) lol
 

I hate the saying when people say he is a good shot stopper when describing goalkeepers. Surely as a goalie he should be a good shot stopper, but I think it sums up Pickford. It seems when he doesn’t have to think about what he is doing he does it very well.

in the Man Utd game at Goodison the time he had to watch the player on the ball carry it and shoot from there any pro keeper in the top few leagues in England should be saving that and it was a bad mistake. But then when he didn’t have time to think, only a snap judgement he saved the point right at the end doing that double save.

I think it was Merson on SSN who summed it up when Arsenal were linked with the goalkeeper Marshall at Cardiff. He said when a keeper is playing for a club at the bottom they can look good when your facing loads of shots and you are more focused because your always in the game etc and if you let a few in no one blames you. But the top keepers keep there places in the top clubs because they keep there focus. For example Man City or Liverpool may only face a handful of shots in a game but there keeper is alert and focused and is ready to go. I think Pickford a focus is a worry that and he larks around with the fans to much.
 
Back to the original question. Older fans like myself may judge keepers a shade unfairly because we had witnessed one of the all time great keepers. However, we also witnessed Nev towards the end of his Everton career when he had put on weight and was a pale shadow of his former glories.

Most of our supporters I believe give players numerous chances to show they are the calibre of player and individual to be a regular for us.
I believe we are more than fair as a fanbase and am amazed that Pickford has any supporters left.

We should expect him to consistently perform as well as the top 6 keepers in the premier league. To my mind the last 2 seasons he would rank in the relegation 3 in terms of keepers and probably bottom half of the Championship.

He lacks the physical, mental and technical requirements to be anything like a top class keeper and fear he will be retained into next season.
 
Imho in my era Nev was the best by a mile
West and Martyn were good.
But we have had far too many poor keepers..
Davies
Lawson
McDonagh
Gerrard
Myhre
Simonsen
Wright
Westerwald
Wessels
Mucha
Hodge
Brand
Nash
 

. I still shake my head at the story of one Premier League manager who was told by a player: “You’re stupid, we’re not listening to you anymore.”

Baines to martinez haha
 
Such a shame we never got to see Southall playing in a major international tournament. A lot of people think it would've been the stage to truly cement his status as the best.

He came so close with the 94 world cup didn't he? Wales had a decent first 11 back then, similar level to the Republic team, yet they always seemed to fail at the last hurdle.

Would we have been relegated without him that season?
 

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