Hall of Shame for Premier League keepers

In the World Cup there were a few goalkeeping mistakes and everyone blamed the type of ball. It would be hard to blame Robert Green’s mistake on the ball but some of the others may be excused for that reason.

Errors

So how do we explain the succession of errors made by the goalkeepers in the Premier League over the weekend? As far as I know the ball has received no criticism so is it just a coincidence that so many keepers played so badly?

Let us start with the good. Brad Friedel, Paul Robinson, Jussi Jaaskelainen, David Stockdale, Petr Cech, Ben Foster, Heurelho Gomes, Matt Gilks, Marcus Hannehman and Thomas Sorensen didn’t do a lot wrong and Manchester City’s Joe Hart was exceptional. So that is eleven keepers who can be happy with their days work.

Forget

That still leaves quite a few who had a day to forget. Pepe Reine, Manuel Almunia, Robert Green, Tim Howard, Scott Carson, Chris Kirkland and Simon Mignolet did not have the game that they had dreamt of having the night before and they did have the type of game that will have given them nightmares ever since.

Let us look at this list in some sort of order of shame:

7. Simon Mignolet, Sunderland
Looked nervous and unsure from the very first minute. This was not a debut he will want to remember and he may wonder why he didn’t attempt to deal with either of the crosses that led to the two late Birmingham goals and may also wonder how he allowed the first goal to get past him.

6. Manuel Almunia, Arsenal
Flapped at crosses and showed us all why Arsenal are so desperate for a new goalkeeper and should have got one ages ago. Although Ngog’s shot was firmly struck it was from an angle and went in at the near post. No Premier League keeper should be beaten like that.

5. Robert Green, West Ham
We all wondered if Green would be fully recovered from his World Cup nightmare. It became clear very quickly that he hasn’t. A couple of terrible punches were followed by a couple of poor parries and his performance in general was shaky and totally lacking in confidence.

4. Scott Carson, West Brom
OK, I gave the ‘Not Hot’ keeper award to Carson yesterday and that was probably a little harsh when you look at the others. It is just that I think the others are actually ‘Hot’ keepers usually and I don’t think Carson is. Playing their first game back in the Premier League away at the champions Chelsea, West Brom didn’t need their keeper to drop a simple catch after six minutes and hand Chelsea a goal. He did just that and they went on to get six.

3. Chris Kirkland, Wigan
The only reasons Kirkland gets away with third place are that there were two more comical errors and he had the excuse of playing behind one of the most inept top division defences I have ever seen. Kirkland managed to let one shot go straight through his hands and then palmed the ball away to a striker before deflecting the follow up into the net to give away two of three first half goals. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the hapless keeper in the second half he allowed a weak near post cross to beat him and create a hat-trick of mistakes.

2. Tim Howard, Everton
Any other week and Tim Howard would have been the worst hands down, if you’ll excuse the phrase! When Tim came out of his goal to collect the ball easily, most people looked away to see what he was going to do with it. Unfortunately for Tim, so did he! The one person who didn’t was Blackburn striker Kalinic who latched onto Howard’s inexplicable drop and turned to slam home the only goal of the game.

1. Pepe Reine
The winner has to be Liverpool’s Pepe Reine. Maybe if Liverpool hadn’t worked so hard for so long to hang onto a 1-0 lead with ten men against Arsenal it wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe if it hadn’t been in the last minute and cost his side two points it wouldn’t have been so bad. No, it’s no good, even if it had happened in the park on a Sunday morning it would still have been terrible and just a little bit funny. That’s the first time I have seen a keeper actually throw the ball in his own net for a long time.

They are all good keepers (Scott Carson?) and I’m sure they will all show how brilliant they are before long. I suppose it can only be a coincidence that so many did so badly on the first weekend.