Just read on planetfootball.com that liverpool might be looking to make a move to pick up a new keeper with a long term injury taking there main back up out for the rest of the season and Jerzy Dudek the polish wonder being the only real keeper they have rostered....special permission can be granted in situations to sign injury "replacement" players... if this happens...any thoughts on good american keepers that could make a good impact and do well at Anfield???
Any American keepers (other than Friedel, Keller, Howard and even Hanehman sp?) that would qualify for a work permit??? I think its unlikely anymore American keepers will go to the Premiership...
Tony Meola may be able qualify on appeal. Though he has not been capped a ton recently, but with as many caps as he has earned and his participation in however many world cups it has been - he is an established International-Quality keeper. Mostly I am just being mischevious by suggesting him, though. Adin Brown is certainly Premiership quality and Kevin Hartman isn't much behind, but they would never qualify for work permits, of course. Pat Onsted - if he were not aged - would be an interesting guy to take a flyer on for a short-term backup. He would probably qualify, although I don't remember if Canada is in the top 75 national teams on the FIFA list.
http://www.planetfootball.com/article.asp?id=164016&cpid=8&title=Reds+may+make+keeper+move Here's the actual link. There's no mention that GH is looking at American goalkeepers, largely for reasons everyone's already mentioned. So there won't be any American goalkeepers at Anfield this season. Except of course when Spurs, Rovers, and Merchandise United come to town.
OOps.... Oops, sorry if the title was misleading to the fact that somebody thought they were pursuing a ameri-keeper, just meant to say what american keepers would be a possibility to fill the role....
He also, sadly, has very poor reputation after a spectacularly mediocre spell in England a few years back.
Canada is part of the British Commonwealth, so I don't believe Onstad would need a work permit. He's too old to be taken up by a EPL side at this point in his career, however. Maybe another Yank keeper already in Europe such as Joe Cannon or Matt Jordan? What's Ian Feuer up to these days?
Marcus Hahneman? Shouldn't be any work permit issues, and he was only a game or two shy of being EPL for this season.
While there might be someone under the radar who has an EU passport (a la David Yelldell, who I hadn't heard much about here or anywhere and who just went to Blackburn to be their third-string keeper), I don't think there'd be anyone we don't know about who would be a second-string keeper. Teams aren't going to bother with a non-EU player as a backup, so it'd have to be an American with EU citizenship.
well to go from being a keeper who looked at best average in Div 2 to being a world class keeper in 8 years is some achievement.
Um, Segroves, he's plenty good enough to be an EPL backup. Jeff Cassar and Ian Feuer were EPL backups. Why not?
Besides not being able to stop PK's, what about Zach Thorton, he's still on the younger side of his career?
if Ian Feuer was a top keeper he wouldn't have had a downward slide through the divisions to non-league football. A resume reading Rushden, Peterborough, Luton, West Ham could be impressive, but one reading West Ham, Luton, Peterborough, Rushden, isn't. Having played a handful of games in the EPL is no guarantee of quality. Loads of players show promise in the early part of their careers, but never live up to their potential. The EPL in the early 90s was a very different beast to what it is now. I'd never previously heard of Jeff Cassar, but all I could find were details of him twice making the bench at Bolton and being rejected by Div Ipswich. I'm prepared to admit my knowledge of him as a player is incredibly limited, but at first glance he doesn't exactly sound a serious candidate for a team looking to push for a champions league place.
Possibly because you have to play in a certain percent of the clubs matches to have your work permit renewed. That would be the best inference I could make. There was something about this with JMM right after Japorea.