The mancityfans.net football forum

Can anyone remember a batch as good as this current crop?

Hart
Begovic
Szczesny
Krul
Given
Reina
Cech
Vorm
Schwarzer
Robinson
Al Habsi
Howard
Friedel
Hennessey
Mignolet

I'd feel pretty comfortable with any of those between the sticks. In fact, the only current first-choice keepers in the division who I think are pretty suspect are De Gea and Jaaskalainen. Is it my imagination or has the standard of goalkeeping been improving year-on-year? Do people see this in other leagues that they follow closely?

I reckon Krul and Vorm in particular will be rated as 10M players by the end of this season.

Excellent thread!
Pesonally I can see De Gea going on to be a legend in the Seaman (for Arsenal) or Joe Corrigan type way. Skakey first season or so but then going on dominate the No. 1 shirt for the club ... I'd only be happy with 5 or 6 of those if we were to maintain/progress mind

Alioune DVToure wrote:Can anyone remember a batch as good as this current crop?

Hart
Begovic
Szczesny
Krul
Given
Reina
Cech
Vorm
Schwarzer
Robinson
Al Habsi
Howard
Friedel
Hennessey
Mignolet

I'd feel pretty comfortable with any of those between the sticks. In fact, the only current first-choice keepers in the division who I think are pretty suspect are De Gea and Jaaskalainen. Is it my imagination or has the standard of goalkeeping been improving year-on-year? Do people see this in other leagues that they follow closely?

I reckon Krul and Vorm in particular will be rated as 10M players by the end of this season.

Actually don't think some of them are that good.Al habsi just got MotM v Wolves and he did make 2 or 3 great saves but he also looked iffy at times and i won't forget his assist for us last year.They can all have really top games but seem to be all capable of being average and prone to disasters.

Would you really have Hennessey after last week? Reina was amazingly lucky yesterday.Krol I will reserve judgement on till after another 10 or so games but I agree Vorm looks the business.

Vorm looks the steal of the season so far at £1.5m.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:

Alioune DVToure wrote:Can anyone remember a batch as good as this current crop?

Hart
Begovic
Szczesny
Krul
Given
Reina
Cech
Vorm
Schwarzer
Robinson
Al Habsi
Howard
Friedel
Hennessey
Mignolet

I'd feel pretty comfortable with any of those between the sticks. In fact, the only current first-choice keepers in the division who I think are pretty suspect are De Gea and Jaaskalainen. Is it my imagination or has the standard of goalkeeping been improving year-on-year? Do people see this in other leagues that they follow closely?

I reckon Krul and Vorm in particular will be rated as 10M players by the end of this season.

Actually don't think some of them are that good.Al habsi just got MotM v Wolves and he did make 2 or 3 great saves but he also looked iffy at times and i won't forget his assist for us last year.They can all have really top games but seem to be all capable of being average and prone to disasters.

Would you really have Hennessey after last week? Reina was amazingly lucky yesterday.Krol I will reserve judgement on till after another 10 or so games but I agree Vorm looks the business.

I didn't see Wigan/Wolves earlier so I can't comment on that. As for Hennessey, I thought he kept Wolves in the game during the first half last week. He was a bit iffy for the Kolarov goal, but he wasn't helped by his centre-halves not tracking.

I think Al Habsi is 5 times the keeper Jaaskalainen is now. Jussi was ace a few years ago but he looks terrible every time I see him now.

Did you see how Krul commanded his penalty area at the Britannia on Monday night? Some of the most impressive goalkeeping I've seen in a long time. And his shot-stopping ability is brilliant. And he's still only 23.

He's the next big-money move in my opinion. I wouldn't be surprised to see Chelsea make a move next summer.

Chinners wrote:Excellent thread!
Pesonally I can see De Gea going on to be a legend in the Seaman (for Arsenal) or Joe Corrigan type way. Skakey first season or so but then going on dominate the No. 1 shirt for the club ... I'd only be happy with 5 or 6 of those if we were to maintain/progress mind

He's definitely highly regarded in Spain. We'll see. He looks to have stage fright on the big scene. The exposure at the Swamp is ten times anything he'll have experienced at Atleti and for Spain U21s.

Speaking of keepers, did you notice the amount of spills and pushes they were doing on Match of the Day? It's not just Joe that's having a few problems - Reina and Cech both had incidents. Pretty much points to the ball having a big influence this season (which has probably contributed to the number of high scoring games from other teams as well, ours would obviously have been this good regardless).

1950 wrote:Vorm looks the steal of the season so far at £1.5m.

Yeah totally agree, Vorm has been amazing so far this season some of the saves he's pulled of have been class.

1950 wrote:Vorm looks the steal of the season so far at £1.5m.

Aye. Pick of the bunch for me. Started well against us and even though he has made the odd blunder he looks the business.

Abi.. Abdi.. Ali... oh fuck it I can't remember. Wigan's keeper made a blinding save v Wolves today. Fantastic.

Mark (Blue Army) wrote:

1950 wrote:Vorm looks the steal of the season so far at £1.5m.

Yeah totally agree, Vorm has been amazing so far this season some of the saves he's pulled of have been class.

What a debut he had at [strike]CoMS[/strike] the Etihad, really really impressive that night and I've seen plenty of other saves from him on MoTD and the like.

Top bargain of the summer

After watching Begovic today I would take him off the list as well :)

And what about Friedl? We all know he is good (or is it was good) but today he got MotM and was spilling shots and headers all over the place.On another day he could have given a couple of goals at least with his half saves.

Friedl has been one of the best if not the best in the league for a lot of years now, but what I saw yesterday reminded me of Seaman when it was past it but we kept playing him.

Shay Given seems to be going about his business quietly and efficiently.

Anyone rememebr Bobby Mimms's debut for Everton at Maine Road?

Slim wrote:Friedl has been one of the best if not the best in the league for a lot of years now, but what I saw yesterday reminded me of Seaman when it was past it but we kept playing him.

Bollocks. He made a number of top notch saves.

what's the average age of that lot? It feels to me like more managers are giving younger keepers a shot.
Also good to see City Academy products Hennessey and Westwood (in Mignola's absence) doing well (mostly).
There are only two Englishmen on that list though. Where did it all go wrong?

Alex Sapphire wrote:what's the average age of that lot? It feels to me like more managers are giving younger keepers a shot.
Also good to see City Academy products Hennessey and Westwood (in Mignola's absence) doing well (mostly).
There are only two Englishmen on that list though. Where did it all go wrong?

There's Foster as well, who's pretty decent. Capello allowed both him and Robinson to retire from international football in their late-20s. Awful man-management. We're now left with no capable back-up to Hart.

Who's gonna go to the Euros? Scott Carson? *shudder*

Westwood looked impressive.

Alioune DVToure wrote:

Alex Sapphire wrote:what's the average age of that lot? It feels to me like more managers are giving younger keepers a shot.
Also good to see City Academy products Hennessey and Westwood (in Mignola's absence) doing well (mostly).
There are only two Englishmen on that list though. Where did it all go wrong?

There's Foster as well, who's pretty decent. Capello allowed both him and Robinson to retire from international football in their late-20s. Awful man-management. We're now left with no capable back-up to Hart.

Who's gonna go to the Euros? Scott Carson? *shudder*

In an ironic way that situation mirrors Harts club ....

The thing about keepers is that when you watch highlights you usually get to see the best they have to offer.The brilliant saves and not the mistakes they make unless they lead directly to goals.It's that stuff that creates and leaves the positive impression about the player.

When you see all the game and especially when you see a keeper week in week out you see performances ,warts and all and you get the true picture.We have the best keeper in the country and he is still very young.We know how good he can be,the fantastic saves he can make but ,even knowing that or maybe because we know that there is a tendancy to start to focus on the negatives.We start picking at anything and even start to think that he isnt the best around.

I wouldnt swap him for any keeper anywhere and I also don't think I would want to bring another keeper in as his understudy.I don't know if Panti is a top notch keeper yet and hopefully we won't need to find out in the near future either.

Just to pick on 3 other keepers who we know are excellent. Shay Given,it was decided he was number 2 to Joe.In recent times imo we have seen why as goals scored against him are as much down to him staying on his line for crosses he should be taking as anything else.Great shot stopper for sure but very weak on crosses.

Czec,another fine keeper but only last week he was heavily criticised after the Arse game for letting goals in at his near post.I think we have seen the best of Czec.And Friedl, another top top keeper who is past his best.Still good as we sort of saw yesterday but in that game against Fulham he was parrying shots all through the game ,just as Joe is being heavily criticised for.He got away with it in that one but might not in the next.

Joe all day long for me.