No defence is perfect and last night the first goal was unstoppable, it fell to him, he shifted it and screamed it in the top corner. For the second there we could have done better and we were punished.
I was looking earlier at the 3 league games where we have conceded 6 goals and the opposition has had 9 shots on target in those games. We were averaging about 60% possession before last night too. So we kept the ball well for almost 2 thirds of those games, and we restricted the opposition to 3 shots a game on target.
Unfortunately they have scored from 66% of those shots on target. You could say that was unlucky but I noticed last season the amount of games where we were massively on top and the other team had 2 shots on goal and scored 2 or 1 on target and scored 1. It was really frustrating. Do you blame Howard? Well I think the problem with keepers is they are seen as quite passive in the team; if they are not doing much wrong they are seen to be doing well, but a top draw keeper will make hardly any mistakes but also save his share of the 'unsaveable' those point blank shots that get tipped over the bar or whatever.
Keepers are relatively cheap compared to other positions but goals that 90% of keepers would have let in and pundits would have said "he had no chance of saving that", I think if you have a keeper who through reactions, anticipation, if they can save 10 of those a season on top of the bread and butter saves, that makes a massive difference. A goals a goal - hence 20 goals a season and you're worth £25 million but a save is subjective and not so easy to compare.
Anyway I guess I’m saying without Howard doing too much wrong, are we getting the most out of that position or should we look to spend £6-7 million and look to improve on it. Is he the best in the league? No, so why not look to improve.