Spurs Blogsville

He Might Be Considered One Of Our Own But This Pundit Doesn’t Half Talk Nonsense At Times

|

Football analyst, or in common parlance, pundit Garth Crooks has drawn up his Team of the Week offering following the Premier League action on Saturday and Sunday and two Tottenham Hotspur men make it into his selection this time around following our victory over West Ham United.

With a number of solid performances from a fair few players given the results across the division Crooks’ selection isn’t overly dominated by the so-called Premier League darlings for a change although a few of his regular go-to’s who can do no wrong feature as you’d expect.

The lineup is more balanced than usual in my humble.

Hugo Lloris
Joe Gomez, Shane Duffy, Nathan Ake
Etienne Capoue, Juan Mata, Fernandinho, Josh Murphy
Mohamed Salah, Erik Lamela, Anthony Martial

You can read his full reasoning by Clicking Here.

What caught my eye was his spiel on Lloris.

“I might be a Tottenham fan, but I’m not a fan of Hugo Lloris. For a top-class goalkeeper, he makes too many errors in the games that matter. The World Cup final was a typical example. That is a damning indictment of the France World Cup winner, I admit, but readers of my team of the week will know I have been a consistent critic of his for the past two seasons. Nevertheless, he makes my team because of an excellent performance against a West Ham side who should have got something from the game. Saves by Lloris were the reason why they didn’t, but the claim from Mauricio Pochettino that Lloris is one of the best goalkeepers in the world is extremely generous.”

I simply couldn’t disagree more. Most people accept the simple fact that Lloris is one of the best goalkeepers in the world and yes he makes mistakes, but he demonstrates it time and time again. Crooks can hardly claim otherwise as what’s he going to do, point to a £70million odd Liverpool goalkeeper who makes mistakes by trying to overplay, current Everton flavour of the month Jordan Pickford has mistakes in him. Should we go abroad and look at Manuel Neuer for example?

Show me a goalkeeper who has never made a telling error and you’ll be showing me a goalkeeper who has never played 45 minutes. Even for a pundit who has to find things to talk about, calling out a man between the sticks is a soft option as any mistake is magnified and amplified by the nature of their position and the opportunity it means for a goal to be conceded.

Making a mistake doesn’t make somebody not world class – it’s what they stop in between the mistakes that other goalkeepers aren’t expected to get to, that earns them that tag.

Share this article