England Keepers

[Alan75]

After the weekends blunder by England keeper David James, the press are full of criticism for the England managers team selection. One however, only has to look at the current premier league statistics and you can count on one hand the number of English keepers getting first team Action. James at City, Robinson at Spurs, Martyn at Everton, Green at Norwich, Hoult at West Brom.

After years of having world class keepers, ready to take up the number 1 shirt, England now appear to have caught a disease once the domain of Scotland. Where have all our keepers disappeared to and what is the underlying cause of this decline.

During an interview last April, with Tim Flowers, the former Rovers and England keeper, responded to my question regarding whether the trend by Premiership clubs to having foreign keepers, was detrimental to the National team by stating.

No disrespect to non-English keepers, but with limited English keepers getting premiership experience it doesn’t help. However there are a number of good English keepers about.

However a frightening response to my question on who in his opinion were the best Premiership Goalkeeper not one English keeper was mentioned. Tim’s response being.

There are a number of good keepers in the premier, Friedel at Rovers, Given at Newcastle, Niemi at Southampton and I was impressed on how Howard adjusted so quick to the premier league.

The lack of top class English keepers and the performance of the England team is currently being discussed on the messageboard forum.

Link David James Topic