Obviously, there are shots that just aren't going to be saved. This wasn't one of them. All I'm saying is that Howard had let himself drift a couple of steps out of position-- maybe only one step, for that matter. But it was far enough that the striker probably saw it and took advantage of it. AND, I am saying that Howard has allowed such goals in the past. It appears to be a weakness in his otherwise-very-strong resume as a goalkeeper.
how can you say this? If Howard is positioned one or two steps to the left, and the guy hits that same rocket to the near post, Howard has no chance again. Then we would be arguing that Howard cheated and got caught. The problem is that the guy hit the ball so hard, where Howard was positioned from goal (and distance from striker of ball) there was not enough time to get his hand up. Howard tried, and with his great reaction time- usually beats the ball to the spot. But this time, he got blown away. Usually being a bit closer to the striker cuts down the angle (and leaves you more susceptible to a lob), but puts you in better position to get hand on the ball If you are going to argue that he was too far out from goal, that would make more sense. Perhaps being a couple steps closer to his goalline would have given him more time to react and get a hand up (despite needing his hand to go further to get to the ball). Fact is- the guy absolutely scorched that shot. You don't see balls hit that hard, directly in the corner, very often. Its the combination of power and placement that was world-class. Doubtful that any positioning would have helped him. That was just a great shot.
How do you propose a keeper can position himself to cover either side of the goal on a shot from the middle? Come on, now. When the keeper is in that situation he's pretty much hoping the striker doesn't hit it right because the things the keeper can do are very limited. You advance to cut off some angles, make yourself as big as possible, and hope. This one hit it right and made all that stuff moot.
Howard was not standing in the center of the goal. He had drifted to his right a step or two. When he dove to his left to try to save the shot, he almost got a hand on it. Therefore, if he had not drifted a couple of feet out of position, he would have had to reach a couple of feet less with his dive, and quite possibly could have made the save. My original observation was simply that drifting to the right served no purpose and made the save harder to accomplish. I then went on to note that Howard has been burned by long-range shots like this in the past, suggesting that this is a part of his game he might be able to improve. The man is not perfect. He, like everyone else, has areas that he can focus on for improvement. Positioning on long-range shots seems to be an aspect of his game that he might still improve upon, making himself an even better goalkeeper.
Don't have a position on the particular shot, but the idea that positioning doesn't matter because by moving one way a goalie closes space on that side but gives up space on the other is ridiculous. The idea behind positioning is that, by the use of angles, you can reduce the space on one side by more than you give up on the other by taking up the right angle against the shooter. Howard didn't do this against Prince-Boateng in the World Cup with the result that he gave him extra space to shoot out, turning a saveable shot into an unsaveable one.