Couldn’t agree less. You cover your side, yes. But that free kick was neither anywhere near the corner nor of sufficient pace to have been let in. A yard to his left and quicker reaction he’d have saved it. It was a decent free kick, no more. A keeper of football league standard should save it 8/10, a championship keeper every time in my view. Anyway, it’s gone. Can’t change it. I suspect Townsend will continue, though I’d look to bring Davies back in at some point.
Yeah, part of this setup is that the wall has to jump to help protect that side. Maybe he could have done better, but I don’t think it was totally his fault. The shocking defence/midfield for the first goal and shocking referee were more of a concern.
Served us well ? From a clanger on his ore season debut he's consistently cost us points ever since be it dropped crosses or gets beaten from long range too easy with only a handful of excellent saves to redeem himself.
That is true, no doubt. Though not jumping is often an instruction from the coaches to prevent goals from shots going under them - so we don’t know whether jm had instructed them to just stand
So the promotion year, the Johno’s cup and last year too? Nah. You don’t do all that with a poor keeper. Yeah he’s the odd mistake in him, but he’s saved more points than cost us prior to this season for sure. This season has not helped by having a different back 4 for every game almost, but he has dropped confidence and form this season without doubt. It doesn’t make him a bad keeper though.
I dont know if Townsend is poor or was poor and have confidence in him as any keeper who has played so little for us. Davies has gone backwards this season and hasn`t really recovered from setting up Winnall for Wendys, a massive **** up which saw him retain his place in the team.
It was a very good free kick, similar to Hourihane's against Leeds last year. Townsend had no chance. Davies on the other hand had much easier chances to save Fulham's second or QPR's equaliser or a lot of the other easy tasks he's ballsed up costing us goals - Winnal's goal for Wednesday, the "punch" against Northampton, and on, and on. Townsend's kicking is also a lot better than Davies'. He just needs to teach some of the defenders how to pass long.
It was a decent hit. But watch it again. It’s not in the corner, it hits the back of the net nowhere near the side netting, and it was also quite below the bar. It was also just floated over the wall with little pace. Not really. CHs was from the left hand side, they moved the ball wider of the wall so he didn’t actually take a direct free kick, his went right into the top corner and had much more pace on it That is true. Mainly though because he was a yard to far to his right, he isn’t particularly big for a goalkeeper but lacks the speed and agility to make up for that, and as a shot stopper he’s not actually very good. Davies needed to be dropped. I think his head had gone but he’d definitely lost form for one reason or another. He should be brought back though. Even off form I maintain he’d have got to that. Not the first one mind - that was a great hit.
Most of us seem to agree that Davies is the better keeper. Surely the goalkeeping coach must gave spoken to Jose about the goalkeeping situation ?
We should have gone back in for the Oxford keeper & offloaded Townsend. He is not a real rival for the shirt for me.
It’s a funny one. I sit in the West Lower and when the Burton player was setting the ball it appeared obvious for all to see that all he needed to do was hit the target due to NT’s positioning. Granted if the wall jumps then that task is more difficult but I still think that he made it a great deal easier for the taker than it needed to be.
If I was the goalkeeping coach I'd be keeping a low profile. I'd be thinking that I still haven't taught Davies how to command his area, anticipate when to sweep or not, or deal with high balls. And that I haven't coached his stand in up to replacing him either.