With the Premier League season finished, I will be taking a look at the best players in their respected positions and the outcome would be Aston Villa’s best starting 11 based on statistics, performance analysis and general contribution to the team. We will be starting off with the goalkeeper position. This season we have had 3 keepers playing for Aston Villa. Brad Guzan, Shay Given and Jed Steer, each keeper has made at least one appearance.
- Brad Guzan made a total of 34 appearances for Aston Villa, played a total of 3060 minutes and had 9 clean sheets
- Shay Given made a total of 9 appearances for Aston Villa, played a total of 810 minutes and had 3 clean sheets
- Jed Steer made 1 appearance for Aston Villa, played a total of 90 minutes
Whoscored statistics has given a rating of 6.64 to Guzan, 6.39 to Given and 6.15 to Steer. In total Given has made an average of 3 saves per game on par with Guzan while Steer had to make do with just 2. Guzan has excelled with saves that have come from outside the box, Given has done better with shots in the penalty area while Steer had an equal amount of saves from inside and outside the penalty box.
Based on that information here is my order for best goal keeper:
1. Brad Guzan
While you’re reading this you may just be wondering why I even bothered to write this if the answer was going to be quite obvious. Well we had to start somewhere and to be fair to Given he has a better clean sheet to appearance ratio! But what to looks to be the last season for Guzan, Guzan has done well in goal. He and his defence has claimed more clean sheets this season from last season. Guzan has also become the number 1 keeper for the United States team. One of Guzan’s best performances was against Crystal Palace in the 1-0 victory, Guzan made more than 5 saves and kept a clean sheet in what was a great defensive performance.
2. Shay Given
The revived man, since he has returned to the first team I don’t think that Given has played that bad at all. He definitely has a better clean sheet to appearance ratio. In average Given has managed 1 clean sheet for every 270 minutes, which in order words is 1 clean sheet every 3 games. Given has featured mostly in Aston Villa’s league cup and FA Cup but we can’t forget that he has been instrumental in getting Aston Villa into the FA Cup final including some amazing saves against West Brom and Leicester.
3. Jed Steer
The young man came out of no where to make his first appearance for Aston Villa in the Premier League. For a 22 year old he certainly didn’t play that poorly. Steer has definitely improved after spending a year out playing on loan for Doncaster and Yeovil. He has the confidence and commands the box well. He is rated by Sherwood for two reasons, he stated his interest in keeping Steer in earlier interviews and started in goal against Burnley. Steer could definitely climb this list next season and perhaps establish himself as Guzan’s replacement.
This was a rather a simple analysis of our 3 keepers, it appears as though there will be a keeper shake up at the club, the first one in a few years as Given and Guzan had made the foundation of our keeper position since McLeish’s era. It will be interesting to see what approach Sherwood will take to replace Guzan and Given during the transfer season.
Morning all…..Happy Rotterdam day to all Villans!
Happy Rotterdam day to you too Langford! At 2am tomorrow I will probably be fast asleep, but I have on my desk my picture at 2 am on 27/5/82 holding the Cup at Elmdon airport – smiling, before I realised the team had just boarded the bus and left me with it.
Adam I think you are starting this review a match too soon, one may become a hero, but right now neither of our regular keepers is good enough to keep us clear of the relegation fight.
It’s become fashionable to slate Guzan on this site recently, a little unfairly I think. He must’ve been one of the busiest keepers in the Prem under Lambert’s reign, he seemed to constantly be having to pull off save after save as Villa’s play often led to the defence being under pressure. He’s obviously had a knock to his confidence with a couple of iffy displays and some people on here have turned on him like rabid dogs! Age wise, he’s still at his peak, and I think it would be a mistake to get rid of him, Given on the other hand is reaching the end of his career, he’s been great at times, but how many of those times are left. His performance against Southampton really worried me, he was awful, his lack of height and weakness at crosses have been really exposed. I hope that TS picks Guzan for the Final, but I don’t think he will.
I agree Dave, the criticism of Guzan has been unfair, imo.
I said recently that he’s put in a lot of good performances and he’s just undergone a poor run of form.
He’ll be back, but as you suggest, probably not in the cup final, as Sherwood said a couple of weeks back that Given will play.
Adam, good idea for a series of posts mate.
I’ll admit I slated Guzan a bit, but he’s much better than Given. Never rated or wanted Given. Given’s unlikely for the final with an injury which I think is good news, but I do feel bad as he’s been pretty good in the run up.
I think givens more penalty box wise bar the Shane long goal when he was miles off the goal line probably had to get near to our defenders on the halfway line to give them instructions as they wouldn’t of heard him in the box.Guzan still a very good shot stopper.
As perhaps the only blogger on here who disliked Guzan from the moment Friedel left, I can say I have not turned on him recently. What is good about him I can sum up easily, he is very athletic, and allied to his height it means he is very good against shots from distance even if he has to make a lot of ground.
What I don’t like about him takes a lot longer. His kicking is poor – rarely combining distance and accuracy; his throwing is average. He does not command his box, or have command of his defence like Shilton or Buffon. Those aren’t fatal flaws but these are: he punches when he should catch, he has a known weakness low to his right, and he does not anticipate – meaning cover the attacker’s only possible or most likely placement. At his age I see no possibility of his being able to correct these flaws even with coaching. The league tables do not lie, Villa will never finish in the top half until we have a much better keeper.
Very unfair on Guzan IMO….any knowledgeable football fan will tell you that a keepers job is far more difficult when a back 4 is constantly changed, and that applies to Villa more than anyone else this season. Its mainly his kicking that bothers me and that can easily be remedied with good coaching.
Rotterdam day is almost over….enjoy it and look forward to Saturday!
Very true, OLL, you have been consistent in your criticism of Guzan and fair play for having that opinion.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s the best; just not quite as bad as is made out.
Agreed, he isn’t the best at commanding the box, but he’s a fair bit better than when he got bullied by Blackburn in that Semi. Perhaps that’s what taught him to punch, instead of catch?
I think Langford has a fair point here in top goalies usually have the best defence too. And ours is inconsistent at best, imo.
As for the weakness low to his right, indeed you pointed that out very well a few weeks/months back and I agree.
I’d also add bad positioning for free kicks to the list, fwiw.
But his biggest single fault is his distribution and particularly his kicking. I complained for a good while about this about 18 months ago.
I guess the reason I’m trying to defend him is because I’m not convinced that replacing him is anywhere near the highest priority.
He’s a very good shot stopper and has saved our defence a fair amount of embarrassment over the last couple of seasons, imo.
I’m sure I remember him getting MOTM for about 5 games running not so long back, which means Sherwood has bigger fish to fry, for me.
I think it is unfair of OLL to blame Guzan for Villa not finishing in the top half, the defence was shocking in the first half of Lamberts reign, Guzan must’ve seen more action than most Prem keepers in that period. I agree with Badger that TS has bigger fish to fry. On the subject of keepers punching and not catching, I always thought that was a weakness, but a while ago on Radio 5, an European keeper coach said that they always teach Keepers to punch the ball as far as possible from the ‘danger area’, usually to the sidelines. He thought that the English method of teaching keepers to catch was fraught with danger, e.g. a dropped catch or fumble could easily result in a goal. It kinda made sense and I look at European goalies in a different way now.
The key phrase in your post is “to the sidelines”. The fatal mistake is to punch the ball at right angles to the goal line, and that is where Guzan aims. If his punching took the ball over the bar or out towards the corner when there was no attacker there he would be OK. I hate to see a two fisted punch, if you can get both hands on the ball you should be catching it, when you can get only one hand to the ball then you punch.
I know I am in a minority in rating the goalkeeper as more crucial than the defence, but not alone, the management of Real Madrid, Man Utd Chelsea and Bayern seem to think that way.
OLL, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very important to have a very good keeper, and I guess it’s fair to say that Guzan is never going to be considered a great, I just think, like Badger that other areas of the squad need to be addressed first. Maybe Jed Steer might be the answer, Paul Lambert rated him very highly, we may be grateful to our ex boss for bringing him in one day!
Steer is also rated by Sherwood so you never know! I still think that Sherwood will bring in a keeper that will play for a few seasons before Steer fully takes over as the number 1 keeper.
Given will stay for a season as a back up in case the new keeper doesn’t do too well. That’s just my prediction and how I think Villa’s goalkeeper set up will look like!
Wow FIFA arrests, officials top of the tree involved, hope Platters one. Adam probably give Given a coaching job next year,
That would be a good idea, a coaching role for Given would be a great idea. He could even make it into the coaching staff, I mean he was Lambert’s assistant manager for a short period of time last season