My point was more about the fact his shot-stopping has supposedly a lot worse now. A save percentage of 73.9% ranks him at 6th best. Slightly skewed by the fact he's faced a lot more shots on target than most, 108 in total compared to Ederson's 46. Same list Ben Foster is bottom of by the way. He is only better than Bachman and Fabianski when it comes to crosses into the box stopped, which backs up some of the points. I maintain he's still a great shot-stopper.
Absolutely spot on. But please don't tip off the Man Utd hierarchy quite so publically. They still remain in complete denial on this one. An annual highlight of our season in recent years has been watching the "one of the world's greatest goalkeepers" (shared copyright OGS, Ralf Rangnick, Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal etc etc) flap one into the net for us and start beating the turf in abject despair. I would be very unhappy not having that to look forward to!
I think he saw our defensive horror show on Friday and realised we needed WTE back to improve the line-up
And he won’t be able to improve his positioning technique as there will not be many on target shots from outside the box in training next season - well not from Sissoko anyway.
Not looking good, lets just hope he is just going through a bad patch and will come out the other side a brilliant keeper
I'm going to Amsterdam over Easter and have got tickets for the Ajax Sparta game. I'll have a look and see how he gets on.
Highlights below. Guessing the article is talking about the slip he makes for the second goal. His error, but not really a goalkeeping mistake, just an unfortunate loss of footing on a wet surface. Don't think he was at fault for any of the others, but don't think he looked massively convincing on a couple of shot/crosses across goal.
Another dud bought by the club. I think we'll realise our mistake in the summer when he starts pre-season and will spend the rest of his time here out on various loans. Another career safely ruined by The Stability.
Either he's a dud, so would have a crappy career anyway, or he's not a dud, but our awful ownership will ruin him. Which is it?
Why only two options? He can be not good enough for us but still popular at his current club and have a decent career there. I'd say us buying a player not good enough for us and sending him on endless loans to Mansfield and Lincoln would be a pretty negative move for his career wouldn't you?
If he's capable of having a decent career in the Eredivisie, why is he a dud? And if he's good enough for a decent career in the Eredivisie, surely he's good enough for the Championship, which is where most expect us to be next season? And he's *surely* good enough for the bottom of the Championship/League 1 where some expect us to be in the coming years?
Totally different profile of player. I get the vague idea that we tend to farm our flops out to odd places but if doesn't make it here he's hardly going to accept a move to some lower league backwater when he's already Nigeria's No 1 and has played regularly in Eredvisie.
Are they ‘totally’ different profiles? He plays for Sparta Rotterdam. I don’t really see how they are a huge step up from IFK Goteborg where Dahlberg came from. Okay, he wasn’t No.1 but Dahlberg had played for Sweden before he joined us too. He also went to Emmen last season who seem very much on a par with Okoye’s current club. I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of decent possibility that Okoye comes, isn’t great and finds himself not playing. Then I’d farmed out to the Eredivisie again - comes back and finds himself being shuffled around and potentially lands in League One or similar. Seems like there’s more similarities than differences to me!
This feels like a classic forum dead-end debate to be honest. We're already well into hypotheticals and if you won't accept the basic premise that Dahlberg was and is in a totally different bracket to Okoye that's absolutely fine but it doesn't really give us any way forward.
Goalkeeper development can be a bit odd and lumpy and the most important thing is playing regular senior football regardless of level. Robert Sanchez played a season for Rochdale when he was Okoye and Dahlberg’s age and has been outstanding for Brighton since stepping up. I am not sure being at the bottom of L1 is such a dead end for a 22 year old keeper. I also think Okoye is fine. Yes he made a high profile error at AFCON but his team got thwacked last week and it didn’t really have anything to do with him and then gets reported on by Nigerian media (for whom he is a big boo boy at least in part due to racism about his lighter skin) as “Okoye has shocker etc etc.” Maybe he is in a slight rut but I think he has shown over the last 2 years that he’ll get out of it. Def not worth £6m (if that is what we paid) and def baffling business and I am not sure he’ll be good enough to be a starting PL keeper but I don’t think he is an awful dud.
Hang on, so just because you have framed it as a basic premise, that’s therefore makes it factual rather than just something you believe? I think I’ve laid out pretty clearly and coherently quite a few similarities between the 2 players already that show why I don’t think it’s clear they are 2 totally different brackets of player at all. You don’t agree and that’s fine. But framing it as you being wise and me being dumb is a bit childish really!
Sigh. I haven’t (intentionally) framed it like that. It’s clearly my opinion. My point is simply that we’re into hypothetical debate without even being able to agree on the headline reason why. And that way lies a dull debate. Hence me bunking off.
In my opinion, suggesting I was unable to grasp his basic premise just because I didn't agree with it, it came across that way. UEA has already said it wasn't intended so thats enough for me.
Has anybody seen him play regularly at all? It seems to me like it just assumptions being made. I dont know how many times I watched David James throwing himself everywhere making saves then let himself down by misjudging crosses. Sometimes it's also down to what players are infront of him helping him defend his goal. Even the great TC let in 5 on his debut. Chris Turner who stopped Watford going into double figures on his own, I seem to remember him making some unbelievable saves. The odd bad game especially when they're young isn't the end of the world.
He's a dud because I don't think he'll be good enough for us, so it'll be another player that the club have spaffed money up the wall on and will eventually leave for a loss. Just my opinion, nothing more.
Languishing is harsh. He's getting minutes and plenty of action, it's hardly stopping his progress as a footballer.
