Manchester United

[This might be the only entry in the blogosphere on the soccer team Manchester United that doesn't have to do with its takeover by American businessman Malcolm Glazer]

I'm a bit conflicted. The most promising young American goalkeeper, Tim Howard, plays for the English soccer club Manchester United. I loathe Man Utd. They are essentially the Yankees of English soccer. However, as a supporter of the US national team (for which Howard will surely be the #1 keeper in a few years), I want Howard to do well in his career.

Ever since the great Peter Schmeichel retired from the club in 2000, Man U have used 10 goalkeepers. Some believe that their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, doesn't know how to manage keepers or are too impatient with them.

It's not uncommon. Very few managers are former goalkeepers and thus know next to nothing about the position and what it requires. This is in much the same way many baseball managers don't know how to deal with pitchers.

It's a very difficult position and one that is highly dependent on confidence. If a forward messes up, he has 9 players behind him to cover his rear end. If a midfielder screws up, he has 4 or 5 players to cover him. Even if a defender screws up, he might be bailed out by his goalkeeper. But the keeper is alone. He's not allowed to screw up because every mistake made is magnified ten-fold. Particularly in the eyes of people most of whom think the position consists of making acrobatic saves and nothing else.

Contrary to what one might expect, it's harder to play goal for a good team than for a bad team. Why? Much higher expectations and much lower margin for error.

If you play goal for a really good team, the opposition might only get a couple shots on goal the entire game. You might see no action for an hour and then be called on to make a lightning-fast save. Facing only a few shots a game requires far more concentration than being bombarded. Plus, if you're getting shelled, you have more opportunities to redeem yourself if you do make an error.

Additionally, the more action you get, the more chances you have to refine your judgement making, an absolutely critical skill for keepers. Ironically, average goalkeepers make acrobatic saves more often than world class goalkeepers, because the latter put themselves in a position where they don't have to make the acrobatic saves very often.

Tim Howard used to play for the MetroStars (based in New Jersey). They have traditionally had a porous defense. As a result, Howard was regularly challenged to make top class saves and rarely went long spells with no action. Suddenly he moved to Man Utd, one of the giants of English soccer. Now, he's not under siege every game but is expected to never make an error, the stakes being so much higher. It requires a totally different set of skills.

Plus, the pressure in Major League Soccer was less constant because playoffs render the regular season largely meaningless. In England, a contender can only afford to lose a few games in a season.

Howard (who was the English Premier League's goalkeeper of the year last season) and his colleague Roy Carroll have each made a couple of well publicized errors between the sticks for Man U. It's not that they've made a lot more errors than other top keepers in the league, only that they were made in high profile games and (just as importantly) the mistakes were punished. As a result, defense and goalkeeping are widely seens as United's achille's heel. Conventional wisdom has it that United's keepers are mediocre and they need to seriously upgrade the position if they want to challenge for major honors.

But is that the club's real problem?

United's keepers suffer only by comparison to Chelsea's Petr Cech. Chelsea won the English Premier League title and did so by allowing a record low 15 goals in 38 matches. United, by contrast, conceded 26 goals.

You might consider me biased because I like Tim Howard. If so, take a look instead at the numbers.

For historical context, the Premier League established a 38 game schedule in 1995-96, when the league went to 20 teams. So 20 teams times 10 seasons works out to 200 team-seasons.

Of those 200, only two (2) have allowed fewer goals than this year's Man Utd. This year's Chelsea team allowed 15 and the 1998-99 Arsenal side, who only finished second, allowed 17. In other words, only 1% of teams in the last decade allowed fewer goals than this year's Man Utd.

So going into this season, none of the previous 9 English Premier League champions had allowed fewer than 26 goals.

Even counting this year's fantastic Chelsea team, the last 10 Premier League champions have conceded an average of 33.4 goals... 28.5% MORE than this year's Man Utd.

This year's Man Utd conceded the same number of goals as last year's Arsenal team, who were the first English side in over a century to go undefeated. The 1999-2000 Man Utd side who were champions of not only England but Europe, they conceded 45 goals... 73% more than this year's Red Devils.

The difference? That United side scored 97 league goals (including 59 just in home games), while this year's edition could only manage 58 goals during the whole season.

As uncomfortable as it is for me to be defending soccer's version of the Evil Empire, I feel compelled to set the record straight.


Update: such harsh criticism of keepers is not limited to Manchester United. Archrival Arsenal is also considered to have a liability between the sticks. The Gunners' main keeper, Jens Lehmann, has started 74 league matches in the last two years; he's lost only three.