I'd like to know who these top young keepers are. I agree Danny Ward has earned a proper first-team chance at Liverpool and the supposedly better keepers have done nothing to prove they really are better.
Blackman on loan at Sheff Utd looked a keeper of potential to me, but who are the others?
Chesterfield fielded an U-19, U-20 international in Ramsdale who did very well at times, but also made some horrendous errors that cost points for a team that didn't have any to spare ........
Managers with a nine-month life-span are unsurprisingly conservative in their selections. Youngsters tend to be behind an established first 18 or so, cheap-ish foreign imports and loanees from bigger clubs. Loftus-Cheek should be a Chelsea first teamer as should Abrahams. Jadon Sancho left Man City for Germany for precisely this reason and he has been getting game-time. Loaned out abroad Ademola Lookman has been the player he was becoming at Charlton and precisely the kind of player Everton urgently need. And it isn't just at the very top teams youngsters find their opportunities curtailed. A couple of years ago Jonathan Leko at West Brom was going to be a big thing, yet he was so far from a first-team nailed to the bottom all last season he was sent out on loan wasn't he? It just isn't a coincidence that Dele Alli came through at Milton Keynes, was playing competively in Division One at 17 and is the best of our bunch!
People point to the loans Jordan Pickford had - Alfreton etc - before coming through, as though his experience is proof that the "system" works. Nobody looks at the completely cack goalies Sunderland fielded in a persistently cack team that kept Jordan away from even competing for a place on the bench for literally years. Am I supposed to believe these teflon-coated stoppers were better than him, or should I stick with my own conclusion that some clubs don't know what the fkuc they are doin' ESPECIALLY as regards goalkeepers? For sure rule changes that have turned keepers from stoppers and catchers into place-kickers and passers haven't helped the development of the primary skill-set, but being old I really can remember days when we didn't search for barrels to scrape when we needed to find three goalies for a tournament, there were several pressing their claims in the old First Division and a couple at least in the Second ..... I think Jordan Pickford came through by seizing a chance he was given completely by accident and if the wind had changed at the wrong moment he'd be looking forward to a chance in the National League with Chesterfield.
IMO that the first step is young goalies and outfield players need competitive game-time at the level at which they wish to have a career and until money stops dictating that all managers remain so risk-averse, Gareth Southgate will find his good intentions somewhat thwarted.
And as for Kane's injury ..... pros play all the time thorough niggles and "minor" injuries. Anybody remember a bloke called Suarez virtually hobbling onto the pitch to knock us out? If Kane had have scored no one would have mentioned it, but if Kane had've scored and made himself unfit for the final ..... what then? Gareth Southgate had to go with a decision rather than indulge in sophistry! My biggest disappointment was that he didn't try to develop a system that would have put Sterling, Kane and Rashford on the field together. Injured or fit I thought the problem was we were expecting too much of Kane, both to disrupt the opposition and score the goals.
Blackman on loan at Sheff Utd looked a keeper of potential to me, but who are the others?
Chesterfield fielded an U-19, U-20 international in Ramsdale who did very well at times, but also made some horrendous errors that cost points for a team that didn't have any to spare ........
Managers with a nine-month life-span are unsurprisingly conservative in their selections. Youngsters tend to be behind an established first 18 or so, cheap-ish foreign imports and loanees from bigger clubs. Loftus-Cheek should be a Chelsea first teamer as should Abrahams. Jadon Sancho left Man City for Germany for precisely this reason and he has been getting game-time. Loaned out abroad Ademola Lookman has been the player he was becoming at Charlton and precisely the kind of player Everton urgently need. And it isn't just at the very top teams youngsters find their opportunities curtailed. A couple of years ago Jonathan Leko at West Brom was going to be a big thing, yet he was so far from a first-team nailed to the bottom all last season he was sent out on loan wasn't he? It just isn't a coincidence that Dele Alli came through at Milton Keynes, was playing competively in Division One at 17 and is the best of our bunch!
People point to the loans Jordan Pickford had - Alfreton etc - before coming through, as though his experience is proof that the "system" works. Nobody looks at the completely cack goalies Sunderland fielded in a persistently cack team that kept Jordan away from even competing for a place on the bench for literally years. Am I supposed to believe these teflon-coated stoppers were better than him, or should I stick with my own conclusion that some clubs don't know what the fkuc they are doin' ESPECIALLY as regards goalkeepers? For sure rule changes that have turned keepers from stoppers and catchers into place-kickers and passers haven't helped the development of the primary skill-set, but being old I really can remember days when we didn't search for barrels to scrape when we needed to find three goalies for a tournament, there were several pressing their claims in the old First Division and a couple at least in the Second ..... I think Jordan Pickford came through by seizing a chance he was given completely by accident and if the wind had changed at the wrong moment he'd be looking forward to a chance in the National League with Chesterfield.
IMO that the first step is young goalies and outfield players need competitive game-time at the level at which they wish to have a career and until money stops dictating that all managers remain so risk-averse, Gareth Southgate will find his good intentions somewhat thwarted.
And as for Kane's injury ..... pros play all the time thorough niggles and "minor" injuries. Anybody remember a bloke called Suarez virtually hobbling onto the pitch to knock us out? If Kane had have scored no one would have mentioned it, but if Kane had've scored and made himself unfit for the final ..... what then? Gareth Southgate had to go with a decision rather than indulge in sophistry! My biggest disappointment was that he didn't try to develop a system that would have put Sterling, Kane and Rashford on the field together. Injured or fit I thought the problem was we were expecting too much of Kane, both to disrupt the opposition and score the goals.