Goal keeping debate

[sadoldgit]

If he had gone to West Ham, as many of us thought he would, he might not have played many games but he would have earned a lot more money. He showed great loyalty by staying and the manager seems to think that he is the 1st choice keeper so until that changes this really doesn't matter.

As for yesterday, Porstmouth beat us because they took their chances and we didn't, not because we had Davis in goal.

[saintjinksie]

Agree this thread is a joke. Davis is a top keeper and we wont get better in this league. Bart is a good back up keeper.

 

Maybe Davis hasn't saved enough penalties this season for some people to rate him?????:-(

 

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

[Goalie66]

In my humble opinion I think Kevin Davis is one of the weak links in the side at the moment.

 

+ He is an ok shot stopper at times. His distribution is ok and that’s about it.

 

- No presence in the box. Poor at corners and crosses. Poor at set pieces.

 

One other thing for me is when someone does a back pass to him he just waits a little to long on the ball before he kicks it. Leaving me with my heart in my mouth every time he does this.

 

Even watching him warm up he doesn’t look as good as Bartosz.

 

What do others think?

Can anyone name a better keeper other than Bart for the job?

 

As an ex goalie myself I would agree that Davies is a good shot stopper but does not command his box and therefore puts pressure on his back four. His kicking though is good, better than Bartosz. The main difference between the two is that Davies plays with confidence, despite his shortcomings, but Bart always seems hesitant.

 

IMO opion neither are that good and next year we will need a better quality keeper to read the game better and be decisive. Keeping is 50% shot stopping and 50% preventing the opportunity.

[OldNick]

I would say Belhadj never has any intention of crossing the ball, Kelvin buys the dummy that's all .For the second goal (Dindane's) kelvin is on the ground too early

a really brave keeper (not criticising Kelvin though) would have come out at his feet but Kelvin hasn't got the pace to do that any more, should have stood his ground though, he's diving even before Dindane has decided what to do, might have been effective at speed on a wet pitch but on a billiard table like St Mary's

he was never going to slide far enough to skittle Dindane.

Anyway it's not really his fault,Perry's error and the gung ho attacking left him in impossible situations.

Hand on heart you thought all the time that Belhadg was going go for goal? I was thinking as he took the ball on intead of shooting earlier that he would pass across for his mate to score. KD was in a lose lose situation.

[OldNick]

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

How did he cost us promotion, that is something i cant recall

[AndyNorthernSaints]

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

 

Crazy! you hate Davis!!!! have you watched him play during the last 2 seasons? what exactly did he do to cost Saints promotion in 07?

 

I take it your joking about Forecast right?

[John B]

Crazy! you hate Davis!!!! have you watched him play during the last 2 seasons? what exactly did he do to cost Saints promotion in 07?

 

I take it your joking about Forecast right?

 

 

I thought Bart was the goal keeper in the First Play Off Game at St Mary's who was slow off his line and cost us a goal.

 

In fact he was dropped for the game at Derby

[krissyboy31]

Hand on heart you thought all the time that Belhadg was going go for goal? I was thinking as he took the ball on intead of shooting earlier that he would pass across for his mate to score. KD was in a lose lose situation.

I don't think Belhadj knew what he was going to do until Davis made his mind up for him. If Davis had stood his ground he may have squared it for the tap in but he may have still gone with the shot, which Davis would have had a chance of saving, or he may have hesitated enough for Thomas(?) to get a tackle/block in.

[sadoldgit]

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

 

Wow, bit harsh!!! I can recall some outfielders mistakes that cost us the pay off final place.

[Window Cleaner]

I don't think Belhadj knew what he was going to do until Davis made his mind up for him. If Davis had stood his ground he may have squared it for the tap in but he may have still gone with the shot, which Davis would have had a chance of saving, or he may have hesitated enough for Thomas(?) to get a tackle/block in.

 

 

Hammond I think

[niceandfriendly]

Seems some fans are getting a bit carried away if they think we could do better than Davis. He's by far the best keeper in this league and could easily compete in the CCC.

 

His one real weakness is not being verbal enough. A few times yesterday Perry or Jaidi made a headed clearance when all KD needed to do was open his mouth and collect the ball.

 

Other than that, he was as good as he always is. And that save against O'Hara was world class.

 

We're lucky to have two good keepers in Bart and Davis.

[Window Cleaner]

Hand on heart you thought all the time that Belhadg was going go for goal? I was thinking as he took the ball on intead of shooting earlier that he would pass across for his mate to score. KD was in a lose lose situation.

 

Nope Belhadj dummies him, Zidane trick,there was only 1 intention in Belhadj's mind, score.

[Window Cleaner]

Seems some fans are getting a bit carried away if they think we could do better than Davis. He's by far the best keeper in this league and could easily compete in the CCC.

 

His one real weakness is not being verbal enough. A few times yesterday Perry or Jaidi made a headed clearance when all KD needed to do was open his mouth and collect the ball.

 

Other than that, he was as good as he always is. And that save against O'Hara was world class.

 

We're lucky to have two good keepers in Bart and Davis.

 

I"d rather have Ankergren to be honest.

[OldNick]

Nope Belhadj dummies him, Zidane trick,there was only 1 intention in Belhadj's mind, score.

Yep Zindane comes up against every week and so Davis should have read that one lol, Pele used to finish like Dindanes, he should have known that as well. How about accepting that if you can compare the finish to one of Zindanes then it was a quality bit of skill and applaud it not criticise the keeper.

[LostBoys]

Back to KD - he is the best keeper in League 1 but I thought he should have saved a couple of the goals - his main fault now is that he goes down for the shot a little too early.

[CanadaSaint]

You didn't see him move away from his post to give Belhadj a nice little gap to slot the ball in then?

 

So he bought a dummy when he was one on one. His fault or a quality finish from a Prem player?

 

Actually, I thought KD threw the dummy at Belhadj, trying to force him to shoot that way, but Belhadj was too good and too quick for him.

 

As far as the KD vs Bart debate is concerned, I'd stay with Davis for now. Bart's confidence can be very fragile and he tends to fall apart after a mistake. Also, I don't think he's better on crosses and distribution.

 

To be honest I think we need to spend on this position but there aren't that many really good'ns around.

[Raven on the wing]

The worry I keep on returning to in my mind with Kelvin is the opposition shots on target to goals ratio. Yesterday they had 7 shots on target to our 10. The number of times we concede against the first on target effort is disconcerting. Kelvin had a great season last year and made one great save against O Hara but seemed to get a hand on O Hara's goal and a leg on their 2nd, without stopping it crossing the line. Is that a failing or a credit that he nearly stopped them ? He is I think ample for LG1 as a keeper and his loyalty this season is admirable.

[OldNick]

The worry I keep on returning to in my mind with Kelvin is the opposition shots on target to goals ratio. Yesterday they had 7 shots on target to our 10.

Is that a criticism of our keeper or the power puff stuff that we provided yesterday.I cant recall a cleanly hit shot by us all game.

[madsent]

Wow, bit harsh!!! I can recall some outfielders mistakes that cost us the pay off final place.

 

George Burley's policy of not buying centre-backs cost us the play-offs. Kelvin Davis did nothing wrong in the Pride Park match. He could do nothing with Leon Best's own-goal and he had no chance with any of their penalties. No keeper will save penalties that are smacked into the top of the goal.

 

I said before KD signed his deal in the summer that we didn't need him. I would prefer someone bigger and more vocal and we could have signed any number of very good keepers in the summer. I'm not disagreeing that he's been good this season but he was big weaknesses. As pointed out earlier in the thread, he stays on his line at set pieces too often and he struggles with low shots, especially close to him. As for yesterday's game, I thought he was very unlucky with their second goal. Having seen the replay, I think it's 50-50 whether it gets changed to an own-goal given that his touch actually changed the path of the ball quite significantly. Their third and fourth goals were almost inevitable considering we were a 3rd division team chasing the game against a 1st division team. Replacing Perry with Holmes unbalanced the side and didn't help us defensively.

[derry]

The ambition of our billionaire owner is the Premier as soon as possible, because of that nearly all the players here at the moment are now just passing through.

 

Sooner rather than later they will be replaced by better players and Davis is no different from the others.

[fred kemp]

hilarious, saint richmond, reckons davis should have saved at least two of the goals, they were one on ones ffs, i mean were you there or what ?.

[Wildgoose]

Kelvin has been terrific ALL season. Christ some of you have incredibly short memories.

 

I thought he had a good game yesterday too.......took a couple of crosses easily under pressure and some good distibution, not just hoofing it......

[rshephard3]

How many of our league opposition this season have had a keeper that looks as good all round as KD? 1st post ever on here, I had to chip in on this one. Comparing him to James is ridiculous. We are in league 1. Since establishing himself in the 1st team at Saints he has been one of the most reliable players at the club. Bart is good, KD is better. And much more experienced. His relationship with his back 4 rarely looks anything but assured. The advantage is with the opposition if your defence allows a keeper to have to deal with a one on one. Simples.

[DrZuess1979 the 2nd]

How many 1 on 1`s did Jame`s save? Non as he had NON to deal with.

 

KD was Unlucky with Utakas chip, as it was going wide

 

DJ was lucky that Papa`s header hit his elbow

 

Swings and roundabouts people, nothing more

[Give it to Ron]

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

 

You obviously have never seen Forecast play if you think he is better than KD.

[sadoldgit]

George Burley's policy of not buying centre-backs cost us the play-offs. Kelvin Davis did nothing wrong in the Pride Park match. He could do nothing with Leon Best's own-goal and he had no chance with any of their penalties. No keeper will save penalties that are smacked into the top of the goal.

 

I said before KD signed his deal in the summer that we didn't need him. I would prefer someone bigger and more vocal and we could have signed any number of very good keepers in the summer. I'm not disagreeing that he's been good this season but he was big weaknesses. As pointed out earlier in the thread, he stays on his line at set pieces too often and he struggles with low shots, especially close to him. As for yesterday's game, I thought he was very unlucky with their second goal. Having seen the replay, I think it's 50-50 whether it gets changed to an own-goal given that his touch actually changed the path of the ball quite significantly. Their third and fourth goals were almost inevitable considering we were a 3rd division team chasing the game against a 1st division team. Replacing Perry with Holmes unbalanced the side and didn't help us defensively.

 

I don't think it was a policy. Maybe he had to wait to get the guy he wanted. Just a shame we couldn't have got Andrew Davies in sooner.

[Saint_Jonny]

I can think of several games where he has made a few world class saves in a row to keep us in it / get us a point. Dropping him would be ******* stupid.

[modern matron]

i still hate davis for costing us promotion in 07 - i Have never rated him. would like to see forecast or bart get a chance

 

Sorry but you are talking out of your arse!!! Blame Burley not KD for 2007. KD is by far the best keeper in our division. Frankly your comments sicken me.....

[modern matron]

The ambition of our billionaire owner is the Premier as soon as possible, because of that nearly all the players here at the moment are now just passing through.

 

Sooner rather than later they will be replaced by better players and Davis is no different from the others.

 

KD was wanted by West Ham who are a premier league team....

[modern matron]

As an ex goalie myself I would agree that Davies is a good shot stopper but does not command his box and therefore puts pressure on his back four. His kicking though is good, better than Bartosz. The main difference between the two is that Davies plays with confidence, despite his shortcomings, but Bart always seems hesitant.

 

IMO opion neither are that good and next year we will need a better quality keeper to read the game better and be decisive. Keeping is 50% shot stopping and 50% preventing the opportunity.

 

My god what rubbish! We've got 2 of the best keepers in the championship let alone div 1. Sorry but the goalkeepin position is NOT a weakness!!!

[ALWAYS_SFC]

Funny how people always want someone different to who we have

much like the posts about wanting a new manager........

 

Then after a while complain about him and want someone else.

[pilsburydoughboy]

Kelvin has been terrific ALL season. Christ some of you have incredibly short memories.

 

Agree completly

KD has made superb stops all season.

We ran out of legs yesterday and paid the price for not being more ruthless in front of goal.

KD is not to blame for our defeat.

[Dr Who?]

This is a hard one. I think they both have a lot to give, and both have weak areas in their play. If you could mix the two you would have a perfect keeper.

 

The future is Bart, but how loyal had Kelvin been? He could have left for West Ham. Also how many games has he kept us in with his premier league shot stopping?

[SFC Forever]

Kelvin is club captain and deservedly so. However I do not think he is going to stick around much longer and personally I would like to see Bart given the chance to make the jersey his. We have enough games left for the management to decide whether he is good enough. If not then we will have to get us a new guy for next season.

I reckon our playoff chance has long gone but now we should be playing our best 11 as often as we can with the odd change to see who we are intending to keep or let go in the summer.

[sotonian]

i thought our defence in general was a lot better when bart was in goal, well done kelvin for his loyalty last summer, but bart is by far the better keeper, if it was loyalty we would still be playing le tiss, paine & benalli to name a few,

 

i still cant get the "kelvin saved us last season" comment, did we not go down?

 

with kelvin in goal you know we will concede in every game

 

Bart is young, he is our future, lets play him for the rest of the season, before he gets fed up & wants to leave

[modern matron]

The ambition of our billionaire owner is the Premier as soon as possible, because of that nearly all the players here at the moment are now just passing through.

 

Sooner rather than later they will be replaced by better players and Davis is no different from the others.

 

Sorry Derry that's always been the case. Name me a better keeper than the 2 we have that would join a div 1 side.

[modern matron]

i thought our defence in general was a lot better when bart was in goal, well done kelvin for his loyalty last summer, but bart is by far the better keeper, if it was loyalty we would still be playing le tiss, paine & benalli to name a few,

 

i still cant get the "kelvin saved us last season" comment, did we not go down?

 

with kelvin in goal you know we will concede in every game

 

Bart is young, he is our future, lets play him for the rest of the season, before he gets fed up & wants to leave

 

Disagree. Bart is the logical replacement for KD in the future, for the moment he is a very good backup.

[rooney]

I would agree with Bridge in the initial subject matter of this thread. However, we are not in the Premiership yet and a few of our players will not make it there either. We can therefore leave things as they are for the time being.

[sidthesquid]

Personally I have always had one huge, huge worry with KD - his inability to dominate the 6 yard box. He is as good a shot-stopper as I've ever seen, but he reminds me of another great shot-stopper - Paul Jones, who had the same fatal flaw.

The number of goals he concedes from headers in the six-yard box (ie our last two away draws) is far too high. Any ball in that area is always a lottery and the goalkeeper should have a huge advantage over everyone else in that situation. Also, by not coming out and dominating, it allows the opposition to cross nearer to the goal and forces the defence to hold a deeper line, inviting more pressure. Seeing your keeper flying out to catch the ball on the penalty spot immediately relieves the pressure and discourages the opposition from crossing.

[DT]

Have bored everyone for ages on this one. I think he is the reason we're not doing as well as we should be because of the indecision he creates at the back.

[Goalie66]

My god what rubbish! We've got 2 of the best keepers in the championship let alone div 1. Sorry but the goalkeepin position is NOT a weakness!!!

 

We are not in the Championship. Anyhow what is your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our two goalkeepers?

[hughieslastminutegoal]

I was shocked yesterday when KD came out for a cross (corner?) and took it with aplomb. He showed he can do it, maybe he forgot where he was or something. It is so unusual for him to do this that it really stood out for me.

 

Great shot stopper, probably one of the best. But like David James not good at other parts of his game, especially distribution. Always the same tactic, big boot down the middle to the head of RL, I wonder does he ever consider playing a short ball to one of the full backs not only to build from the back, but also to guarantee possession. Long boot down the middle gives us at best 50% chance of retaining possession, probably less. I don't suggest that you never do this, but some variety would help.

 

Bart has better presence in the area, and is better at dealing with crosses. I don't think he is as good a shot stopper though.

To be fair fewer and fewer keepers try to catch a cross these days.

 

But also we don't know what Pardew's instructions are. We don't really try to work the ball through midfield, so that being so I can't see why we'd want to KD to play it out short. Also, Lambert wins many of the long balls, but we are slow in getting midfield support up, so he more often than not heads it on, hoping for the wide® players to get it.

 

Given the way Pardew seems to want us to play (upmarket long ball), KD is the better option IMO, BECAUSE he is the better shot stopper. Personally I hate to see goal keepers kicking from 10 years outside their penalty area, but that seemed to be one of our main tactics yesterday. I thought we must have got Dave Bessant back as goal keeping coach!

[Under Weststand]

First off I think it was harsh at the time, when Bart was dropped straight away for KD. He had played well & let know one down & deserved to keep his place. That said whilst blaming KD for the defeat on Saturday is harsh, apart from the great save from O'Hara, we really needed him to come to the party aka Ankergren against Tottenham if we were going to win & save a couple of those other chances, but blaming him for not doing so is very harsh! The reason we are analysing the defeat instead of celebrating a victory is that Portsmouth were CLINICAL in front of goal, we once again were not! how many games recently have we dominated for long periods of games created several good chances scored maybe 1 & ended up either hanging on or drawing games that we should have been comfortable in. The defence was Old & slow, & when we were chasing the game at the end, they were exposed with the pace from Portsmouth's forwards which caused the last two goals!

So I don't have a problem with KD or Bart either are good enough at this level, & CCC level.

[Channon's Sideburns]

I'm more worried about our players, Lambert aside, not being able to hit a ball with any power when in on goal to be honest.

 

If we'd taken our chances in the first half, what we are now discussing would be academic.

 

Had we done that, we wouldn't have been chasing the game.

[hughieslastminutegoal]

I was shocked yesterday when KD came out for a cross (corner?) and took it with aplomb. He showed he can do it, maybe he forgot where he was or something. It is so unusual for him to do this that it really stood out for me.

 

Great shot stopper, probably one of the best. But like David James not good at other parts of his game, especially distribution. Always the same tactic, big boot down the middle to the head of RL, I wonder does he ever consider playing a short ball to one of the full backs not only to build from the back, but also to guarantee possession. Long boot down the middle gives us at best 50% chance of retaining possession, probably less. I don't suggest that you never do this, but some variety would help.

 

Bart has better presence in the area, and is better at dealing with crosses. I don't think he is as good a shot stopper though.

To be fair fewer and fewer keepers try to catch a cross these days.

 

But also we don't know what Pardew's instructions are. We don't really try to work the ball through midfield, so that being so I can't see why we'd want to KD to play it out short. Also, Lambert wins many of the long balls, but we are slow in getting midfield support up, so he more often than not heads it on, hoping for the wide® players to get it.

 

Given the way Pardew seems to want us to play (upmarket long ball), KD is the better option IMO, BECAUSE he is the better shot stopper. Personally I hate to see goal keepers kicking from 10 years outside their penalty area, but that seemed to be one of our main tactics yesterday. I thought we must have got Dave Bessant back as goal keeping coach!

[Bridge]

I am not judging KD just by Saturday’s game but how he has been playing all season. I do not have a lot of confidence in him. How many clean sheets has he kept? 2or3 not good.

[krissyboy31]

Personally I have always had one huge, huge worry with KD - his inability to dominate the 6 yard box. He is as good a shot-stopper as I've ever seen, but he reminds me of another great shot-stopper - Paul Jones, who had the same fatal flaw.

The number of goals he concedes from headers in the six-yard box (ie our last two away draws) is far too high. Any ball in that area is always a lottery and the goalkeeper should have a huge advantage over everyone else in that situation. Also, by not coming out and dominating, it allows the opposition to cross nearer to the goal and forces the defence to hold a deeper line, inviting more pressure. Seeing your keeper flying out to catch the ball on the penalty spot immediately relieves the pressure and discourages the opposition from crossing.

 

Couldn't agree more.

[AndyNorthernSaints]

I am not judging KD just by Saturday’s game but how he has been playing all season. I do not have a lot of confidence in him. How many clean sheets has he kept? 2or3 not good.

 

How many penalties has he saved? How many world class saves has he made to keep Saints in games?

 

I think people have either not stopped drinking since saturday or are insane?

[Sour Mash]

I like Davis and he's easily good enough to do a very good job for us in League 1 and the Championship, but he was poor on Saturday I thought.

[Arizona]

Have you got any facts to back up your 'must play at all times if fit' claims?

 

It's a stupid claim to make. Especially given that Kelvin has been on the bench a couple of times after his injury. Bart also played against Charlton in the JPT before Kelvin got injured. People made the same claim about Mule when he first signed, when in fact Burley was just too stubborn to drop him. Why would a club write such a retarded clause into a contract...