Should Howard be dropped?

dirkey_wynne

As you have already seen I have a thread where I express my opinion that he should be dropped. These stats I have just seen surely back my opinion.

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/list.asp?hlid=226060&cpid=8&CLID=1&lid=&title=Carroll+deserves+United+chance

Xterminator

He does seem to have suffered a dip in form, which is not overly suprising giving uniteds changing back 4. (and he is relatively young and inexperienced too, for a goalkeeper).

So i think it might do the chap good to be dropped, and protected from the the spotlight, until his form returns in training.

Once Rio is back, the ship is steadied, and he earns his place with training displays, alex can re-instate him.

X

yop

No he should not be dropped, every keeper goes through a blip. Even the greats like Schemeicel had his moments.
Remember he is only in his mid-twenties and is still learning. Also dropping him does nothing to restore his confidence.

dirkey_wynne

yop wrote:

No he should not be dropped, every keeper goes through a blip. Even the greats like Schemeicel had his moments.
Remember he is only in his mid-twenties and is still learning. Also dropping him does nothing to restore his confidence.

Well call me callous, but I don't give a flying fnck about Howard's confidence. I'm more worried about Utd's trend of conceding goals - for which Howard has been mostly to blame.

Xterminator

yop wrote:

.... Also dropping him does nothing to restore his confidence.

Whereas being barracked by the media, and his own fans does?

Think about it.

X

dirkey_wynne

yop wrote:

Also dropping him does nothing to restore his confidence.

And by the way, do you think having him in the firing line when he's making blunders such as he has in the last 2 games is restoring his confidence?

thejollyrodger

I think he should go, he has made far to many mistakes and there are plenty of other keepers who can still do a good job even though the back 4 are dodgy. Like Casscias for Real Madrid

Big Ears

drop him .

The Muppet

dirkey_wynne wrote:

And by the way, do you think having him in the firing line when he's making blunders such as he has in the last 2 games is restoring his confidence?

No but having his manager teammates and fans stand by him when things dont go well will. Making comments about not caring about his confidence displays a lack footballing knowledge. Managing a real team is a lot different than championship manager and if you are going to drop good players when they have a minor blip you can hardly expect that to be good for team morale.

Howard is not the problem at united its the players in front of him and that will be sorted in the coming weeks. No need for knee jerk reactions at all they'll come good.

dirkey_wynne

The Muppet wrote:

No but having his manager teammates and fans stand by him when things dont go well will. Making comments about not caring about his confidence displays a lack footballing knowledge. Managing a real team is a lot different than championship manager and if you are going to drop good players when they have a minor blip you can hardly expect that to be good for team morale.

Howard is not the problem at united its the players in front of him and that will be sorted in the coming weeks. No need for knee jerk reactions at all they'll come good.

Knee jerk reaction? Ok. If you think so. Last year Howard cost us dearly. Champions league 2nd round, with an absolutely abysmal error. A similarly poor goal conceded against Wolves. But I thought, fine, he's done well for us. But this year is beyond a joke. The errors are just poor. It's got nothing to do with confidence. Dropping a simple catch against Bolton, and an even easier stop against Lyon is not confidence. It's just plain and simple bad goalkeeping. And the more mistakes like these he makes, the more his confidence will suffer. True? If a player is in form, he should play. if he's not, someone else should be given a chance. Carroll has never let us down as badly as Howard has of late, or correct me if I'm wrong. Therefore, does he not deserve a chance? Or should we stick with Howard as if we don't his confidence will suffer? I think not. Carroll keeps clean sheets for us. Howard has cost us a goal in more than half the games we have played this year. That in my opinion is not good enough. When Diego Forlan wasn't scoring goals (ie always) did he play him? No. Did his confidence suffer because of this. Yes. Did we care? No.

BKtje

i wouldnt say the catch he dropped vs Lyon was 'simple'. Had power in it and maybe a surprise factor. That said he shoulda held on but he did well the rest of the match imo.
I still have confidence in him.

The Muppet

dirkey_wynne wrote:

Knee jerk reaction? Ok. If you think so. Last year Howard cost us dearly. Champions league 2nd round, with an absolutely abysmal error. A similarly poor goal conceded against Wolves. But I thought, fine, he's done well for us. But this year is beyond a joke. The errors are just poor. It's got nothing to do with confidence. Dropping a simple catch against Bolton, and an even easier stop against Lyon is not confidence. It's just plain and simple bad goalkeeping. And the more mistakes like these he makes, the more his confidence will suffer. True? If a player is in form, he should play. if he's not, someone else should be given a chance. Carroll has never let us down as badly as Howard has of late, or correct me if I'm wrong. Therefore, does he not deserve a chance? Or should we stick with Howard as if we don't his confidence will suffer? I think not. Carroll keeps clean sheets for us. Howard has cost us a goal in more than half the games we have played this year. That in my opinion is not good enough. When Diego Forlan wasn't scoring goals (ie always) did he play him? No. Did his confidence suffer because of this. Yes. Did we care? No.

I dont believe any keeper would be keeping clean sheets at United at the moment. Carrol is good backup but not a NO 1. If he were there would have been no need to buy Howard. Howard showed his potential in the first half of last season when he had a good defence in front of him and he was one of the best in the premiership. A slump in form was expected and I,m still hopefull he has what it takes to be a top class keeper. Either way IMO its too early to give up on him after a couple of errors.

smemon

surprised by his error last night, they're the exact shots i thought he was best on, low hard shots that other keepers spill. earlier in the game he saved a similar shot.

perhaps he seen it late and was put of by heinze but in fairess to lyon they pounced on it instantly. another error but really, how many passes did we see go astray and no thread about giggs being dropped who was absolutely disgraceful last night, smabolic display and not worthy of wearing utd's jersey.

howard isnt the problem, its the nonsense going on around him.

dirkey_wynne

smemon wrote:

surprised by his error last night, they're the exact shots i thought he was best on, low hard shots that other keepers spill. earlier in the game he saved a similar shot.

perhaps he seen it late and was put of by heinze but in fairess to lyon they pounced on it instantly. another error but really, how many passes did we see go astray and no thread about giggs being dropped who was absolutely disgraceful last night, smabolic display and not worthy of wearing utd's jersey.

howard isnt the problem, its the nonsense going on around him.

Erm, correct me if I'm wrong but Howard was directly at fault for a goal in last nights game, for which noone else could be blamed. Imho he is not the problem, but he's a fairly large problem with the way his form is.

dirkey_wynne

The Muppet wrote:

I dont believe any keeper would be keeping clean sheets at United at the moment. Carrol is good backup but not a NO 1. If he were there would have been no need to buy Howard. Howard showed his potential in the first half of last season when he had a good defence in front of him and he was one of the best in the premiership. A slump in form was expected and I,m still hopefull he has what it takes to be a top class keeper. Either way IMO its too early to give up on him after a couple of errors.

I think Carroll's record speaks for itself. He's not the best keeper in the world, but hte fact is, he kept clean sheets at the end of last season, with a shoddy defence in front of him. I think Howard should be taken out of the firing line for a while. I agree with you that he has what it takes to be a top class keeper, but I think taking him out of the limelight will be good for him for a while. Put him back in when we have a solid defence. For now though, not just for him, but for the team, he needs to be dropped.

yop

The Muppet wrote:

No but having his manager teammates and fans stand by him when things dont go well will. Making comments about not caring about his confidence displays a lack footballing knowledge. Managing a real team is a lot different than championship manager and if you are going to drop good players when they have a minor blip you can hardly expect that to be good for team morale.

Howard is not the problem at united its the players in front of him and that will be sorted in the coming weeks. No need for knee jerk reactions at all they'll come good.

In one muppet, you obviously know more about football than playing Champ Manager.

Players live on praise and reasurrance, it restores confidence, anyone who has been in that situation would understand it.
If you make a mess up and are kicked by your manager onto the subs bench this does not help your confidence but instills even more self doubt.

If you want to blame more people on this where was the Heinze and Silvestre when the rebound came off Howard?? The Lyon player got to it, why did the United defenders??

Again against Bolton, Silvestre was as much to blame as Howard.

It is easy to issolate Howard and blame him, there are more issues going on within the United defence.

dirkey_wynne

yop wrote:

In one muppet, you obviously know more about football than playing Champ Manager.

Players live on praise and reasurrance, it restores confidence, anyone who has been in that situation would understand it.
If you make a mess up and are kicked by your manager onto the subs bench this does not help your confidence but instills even more self doubt.

If you want to blame more people on this where was the Heinze and Silvestre when the rebound came off Howard?? The Lyon player got to it, why did the United defenders??

Again against Bolton, Silvestre was as much to blame as Howard.

It is easy to issolate Howard and blame him, there are more issues going on within the United defence.

Em, to be honest I think a spell out of the spotlight could do quite a bit for his confidence. Did you see how rattled he was after he fncked up the other night? Did you see his ticks as he came off hte pitch? He was clearly rattled. Take him out for a while. Get him out of the spotlight. Get Rio back, get the defence settled and then bring him back in. I really don't think there are more issues going on with the defence. Against Chelsea and Norwich we gave them one clear chance each, and Howard was at fault for both. The fumble the other night was an elementary error. Don't get me wrong, the defence isn't doing the business at the moment either - Silv being the most blatantly obvious at fault. But they're hardly going to be playing with the greatest of confidence knowing how shaky the keeper is behind them.

As for knowing about football and not being a championship manager, do you not realise that a defence plays far better when it has confidence in the man behind them? There is no way they can have confidence in him at the moment.

yop

"As for knowing about football and not being a championship manager, do you not realise that a defence plays far better when it has confidence in the man behind them? There is no way they can have confidence in him at the moment."

I agree totally, I am a keeper so know how defences perform if you have a wobbly moment!
But from a keepers point of view IF the same happened to me and I was dropped I personally would take it worse because you would not have a chance to redeem yourself. If you get the chance to make up for your mistakes you will try 1o times harder that there will not be repeat
That is a total personl point of view, maybe other people react different

dirkey_wynne

yop wrote:

"As for knowing about football and not being a championship manager, do you not realise that a defence plays far better when it has confidence in the man behind them? There is no way they can have confidence in him at the moment."

I agree totally, I am a keeper so know how defences perform if you have a wobbly moment!
But from a keepers point of view IF the same happened to me and I was dropped I personally would take it worse because you would not have a chance to redeem yourself. If you get the chance to make up for your mistakes you will try 1o times harder that there will not be repeat
That is a total personl point of view, maybe other people react different

And that's a very good view point, but surely you'd try extra hard if dropped too - to regain your place and prove the boss wrong? You see, I'm off the opinion that for the time being Howard has been given enough chances to redeem himself. After that atrocity against Bolton (and that's not even going into the 3 errors in earlier games this season) to go out and do the same again against Lyon just isn't on. He's had his chances for now. Time for someone else, who hasn't let us down nearly as many times, to be given his chance.

yop

Ya fair enough agree to disagree!! !!
What ever happens as long as we win

Have a good one

ButcherOfNog

i think its a bit harsh blaming the keeper, considering the shambles of a defence playing in front of him. the stats don't mention the shots and shots on target by the opposition. If the keeper is getting peppered hes much more likely to drop one in the net.

eirebhoy

ButcherOfNog wrote:

i think its a bit harsh blaming the keeper, considering the shambles of a defence playing in front of him. the stats don't mention the shots and shots on target by the opposition. If the keeper is getting peppered hes much more likely to drop one in the net.

It doesn't really matter how many shots a keeper has on him as Save% is all you need. Anyway you can work it out for yourself. Howard has had 98 saves and his save percentage is 73%. So, 98=73%, therefore 100% = 134. There was 134 shots on target against Howard but as I said, it doesn't matter.

He has a 73% save rate which means he has saved around 1 in every 4 shots on target. Carroll has a save rate of 82% which means he has saved nearly 1 in every 5 shots on target. If both keepers got 100 shots on them and kept up that save ratio, Carroll would let in 18 while Howard would let in 27. Take your pick.

/Edit, I see what your saying about a keeper being more likely to let one in if he's getting peppered so maybe those stats are slightly flawed. United have an average of 3.6 shots on them when Howard was in goal and 3 when Carroll is in.

The Muppet

So if the defence in front of him was so good that there was only 1 shot against the keeper but he was unfortunate enough to let that in he would have conceded 100% but would that mean he's a bad keeper?

IMO it would not an I judge Howard by what I see not by statistics which we all know can be made support whatever viewpoint you want. Howard is still the best option at United at the moment and He should get the time with the full defence back to prove himself before he is dropped.

smemon

eirebhoy wrote:

He has a 73% save rate which means he has saved around 1 in every 4 shots on target. Carroll has a save rate of 82% which means he has saved nearly 1 in every 5 shots on target. If both keepers got 100 shots on them and kept up that save ratio, Carroll would let in 18 while Howard would let in 27. Take your pick.

carroll has played less therefore the stats are irrelevant and completely useless. howard is more agile, more experienced and a better shot-stopper than carrol full stop, hence why he's picked every week.

given had a stint were he was no.2 and it gave him a kick up the backside and he hasnt looked back so i can see how it could benefit him but he's not a bad keeper and despite letting in a few too easily he has still made some superb saves in those games aswell. its not as if he's visibly shaken and you worry every time he touches tha ball.

eirebhoy

smemon wrote:

carroll has played less therefore the stats are irrelevant and completely useless.

I don't see how the amount of games can make the stats useless unless Carroll had played about 5 times.

dirkey_wynne

smemon wrote:

carroll has played less therefore the stats are irrelevant and completely useless. howard is more agile, more experienced and a better shot-stopper than carrol full stop, hence why he's picked every week.

given had a stint were he was no.2 and it gave him a kick up the backside and he hasnt looked back so i can see how it could benefit him but he's not a bad keeper and despite letting in a few too easily he has still made some superb saves in those games aswell. its not as if he's visibly shaken and you worry every time he touches tha ball.

Well to be honest every time he comes to collect a ball these days I worry and I'd imagine the defence do also. As for the point being made that there are more shots on goal with Howard in than Carroll, well this supports my view that Carroll organises the defence far better.

dirkey_wynne

Well the poll sure as hell couldn't have been closer! And it's seems Sir Ferg agrees with those 12 of us who voted yes. Thank God. Carroll didn't have much to do last night, but I think he marshalled the defence well. You could even hear him over the crowd screaming at them, telling them when to hold the ball, when to release and where to move. That's what we've lacked with Howard. Authority. Obviously aided by Rio's return!

The Muppet

Carroll had nothing to do put pick the ball out of the net from another soft Goal against United and a save from a shot from the halfway line. Its down to individual opinions but I still think Howard is the better keeper but that may change over the coming weeks if Roy keeps his place.

dirkey_wynne

He's better in some regards, but I think Carroll at the moment spreads more confidence through the back line, and he definitely gives them more direction. You need a vocal keeper at the back, and Howard most definitely isn't that. Overall he's a better keeper, but right now I'm glad that Carroll is in, and hope he stays there for some time. And if you look at the goal again, Carroll made a save, after some atrocious defending, and was rewarded with some bad luck as it trickled in off O'Shea.

The Muppet

dirkey_wynne wrote:

And if you look at the goal again, Carroll made a save, after some atrocious defending, and was rewarded with some bad luck as it trickled in off O'Shea.

I,ll have another look later. Maybe I,m being over critical but I thought he could have done better on the goal had he attacked the ball.

dirkey_wynne

The Muppet wrote:

I,ll have another look later. Maybe I,m being over critical but I thought he could have done better on the goal had he attacked the ball.

I was thinking that at first, thinking he should have tried to claim the free. However, when I watched it again, it came at a trajectory whereby had he gone for the ball, he would never have reached it. Then I thought he did well to stay up, and make himself big, therefore getting a touch on the ball. This was a gripe I had with Howard against Chelsea - he virtually got out of the way when Gudjohnsen was lobbing it past him, seemed afraid of contact.

dirkey_wynne

Well Carroll has had a few games now. 6 games. 4 conceded. Howard had conceded 4 in 2 previous to that. 2 of which had been directly his fault. Carroll has not been at fault imho for any of the goals in his 6 games. Did extremely well last night with 2 very important saves - one at the end of the first half, one on 70 mins. Stood up and was strong. Not a strong point of Howard. I think Fergie made the right decision dropping Howard.