You could argue for hours about whether a great goalkeeper makes a great team or a great team helps a goalkeeper to become great - but if you look at the stats for David Seaman, Peter Schmeichel, Edwin van der Sar, Petr Cech and Jens Lehmann it is obvious that no team can be dominant without a world-class custodian.
The five I have mentioned are officially the Premier League’s finest, as measured by minutes-per-goals conceded. Schmeichel’s influence on Manchester United from 1991-99 was immense; Cech was the man in Jose Mourinho’s first title-winning Chelsea sides; Lehmann was in goal for Arsenal’s Invincibles; and Van der Sar was the last line of defence for Sir Alex Ferguson from 2005-2011.
Looking at the Premier League this weekend I see the best collection of keepers anywhere in Europe.
Joe Hart, Fraser Forster, David de Gea, Hugo Lloris, Thibaut Courtois, Cech and probably Tim Howard would all be on my list in a debate. Manuel Neuer of Bayern Munich is the stand-out keeper in world football but the Premier League’s all-round collection cannot be matched. Hart, for example, is back on song this season - calmer, more reflective – and Lloris would be chased by a lot of the top clubs in Europe if Spurs allowed him to go.
Courtois has the talent to become the best goalkeeper in the world in the next 12 to 18 months. I believe he will go past Neuer. The player of the season so far, for me, is not Sergio Agüero but Chelsea’s new No1, who has brought a smile to my face. And not many goalkeepers make me smile.
In the Premier League, the ultimate test of physicality, it was almost a hallelujah moment to see how he dealt with crosses and set-pieces. My stance when a ball travels through the air into the box is that there has to be an excellent reason why it does not end up belonging to the keeper. Watch Courtois’ starting positions when the ball is crossed. As he steps out he has already anticipated where the crosser is aiming it and is standing there already when it arrives. It is a fantastic ability. I will always argue for catching over punching and Courtois destroys the myth that punching is always a better option.
De Gea is the player I would say Manchester United could least afford to sell. His improvement is enormous. In a Monday Night Football piece, a couple of years back, I pulled him up on his mistakes against Spurs, because I thought his errors would stop United winning the league. They had conceded 29 goals in 19 games.
I see speculation that Real Madrid want to buy him for £25m. He would be the last person I would sell, as Manchester United manager, for any amount of money. After that Spurs game people remembered the criticism but failed to recall that I also said he could go on to be one of the world’s best. He just needed to develop that physical maturity and decision making. Now, you wouldn’t sell him at any price, and Manchester United should be looking to lock him down for the next five to seven years. He is winning games for them now.
When Schmeichel left United in 1999, we still won the league for the next two years, but we never quite felt the same. For us there was an in-between period when we were without the two dominant goalkeepers of my time: Schmeichel and Van der Sar. In that hiatus we called on many decent keepers: Mark Bosnich, Fabien Barthez, Tim Howard, Roy Carroll and so on. But we were less stable as a club and a team.
Defending for us felt different. Our anxiety levels rose. The stadium atmosphere changed. We no longer had the policeman guarding the door. In that period we never felt consistently safe. So I look for a goalkeeper to be a pillar of the team, to take the pressure off you, to dominate in all situations in and around the box. With set-pieces, Peter and Edwin didn’t just concentrate on their own jobs. They manhandled you into your position as well. They made it their responsibility to know every player’s job at a set-piece because they knew a corner or free-kick was a moment of vulnerability. They performed an incredible leadership role.
When Van der Sar came in, we felt we were back in the Schmeichel mode of unquestioned dominance. In my television job I’m seen as giving keepers a hard time. De Gea, in his early years, and Simon Mignolet at Liverpool are among those I have turned the critical spotlight on, as well as Joe Hart, last season, after the mistakes he made in the Champions League.
For an explanation look no further than my own experiences of playing. A top keeper can carry a team, hold their fate in his hands. A nervy goalkeeper who flaps or skews a kick early in a game changes the whole dynamic inside a stadium, and certainly in his own team.
Although I am hard on goalkeepers, I am also respectful of the fact that it is the toughest job of the lot. It is the position that can cause the most disruption to a club. If a keeper is having a bad time then it runs right the way through the club, the fans and even the opposition fans.
I saw that in my own career. When I first came into United’s senior side the first goalkeeper I stood in front of was the Great Dane himself. Schmeichel was one of the most demanding characters ever to put boots on. He thought a mistake was if the ball went through a defender’s legs, or took a deflection off his shin. An incident that no pundit would classify as an error would be seen by Schmeichel as a defensive mistake.
He hated goals that went through a defender’s legs. And he refused to believe deflections were just bad luck. His idea was: "If there’s a shot from 25-yards, let the shot go past you. Don’t stick your leg out." I’ve been conditioned to see many deflections as products of panic, a lack of composure. Peter Schmeichel demanded that those goals were not to be tolerated. We reached the point where he was a kind of defensive coach in the penalty box.
You can bring a whole season down to points where you need your goalkeeper to save a huge one-on-one. I’m thinking for example of Demba Ba bearing down on Simon Mignolet for Chelsea against Liverpool in that vital game in April after the Steven Gerrard slip. You’ll need him to control that situation, leave no gaps for the striker to see. So often in the last four or five matches of a campaign you see those defining confrontations.
The top keeper also needs to maintain the highest concentration level when he’s not involved in the game. A good team may leave him with nothing to do for five, six minutes. Acrobatic shot-stopping isn’t what impresses me. It is making a great judgment after a period of inactivity. If Van der Sar came off having barely touched the ball he would consider it a good performance at his end. He had no ego urging him to be involved.
If you are a fan this weekend, get after the opposition goalkeeper. If you can break the other team’s goalkeeper you break their team. One dodgy kick in the first five minutes can spread anxiety. Unsettling the goalkeeper is the key to the door. Fans, you can play your part. Make his life miserable. If you crack him, you crack the lock.
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