foster is not the answer, but till we are under pressure fergie is going to still with him. good philosophy if the kid was looking anything like premiership quality, but he aint. would anyone here be too averse to bringing back tim at the end of this season? he was good when we had him but still unready, and he has come along a long way since then.
i think he's well settled in at Everton. not sure he would want to come back. we'll find someone else in January or in the summer. have to think it is our #1 priority.
Now (and for that matter last season) is a particularly bad time. With a strong midfield and a lineup that will slaughter teams like Sunderland, a few growing pains would not be as bad. The problem we have is that this season the team is going to grind out a lot of 1-0, 2-1 wins. And with GK / defensive errors, those turn into draws or losses.
I'm not in favor of us dumping him yet. I want him to get more games in rotation after VDS comes back. The last youngish shot stopper who had a shaky start to his United career left on the cheap and became a top 5 prem GK. I think Foster's upside is huge. He's had terrible luck with injuries and I think that has hampered his development. I'd rather keep him as a back up until VDS is done and then re-evaluate a bit later on.
@ johno, Howard is a lot more consistent these days but is still not MUQ (and never will be). Anyways, now is a good time to put my hands up and say I got it wrong about VDS; would love to see Edwin back in the #1 jersey asap. In the run-up (and including) the Benfica game (which led to our only CL-group stage elimination in 15 years); the frequent errors on long-distance shots (which was considered to be his weakness in serie a as well) had me convinced that he was not going to work out either.
Nelson curled in a beauty. You got to love a Right Back that is able to hit the ball like that. I remember that like it was yesturday . Too bad we sold him immediately afterwards. I miss that little Portuguese bastard so much. He was a mini Miguel. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D_69fdVNlA"]YouTube - Nelson's Goal[/ame]
Agree with you here. Very poor period of form, but I'm not aware of any goalkeeper who hasn't had one of those. The key is how he ends up dealing with it. Howard never recovered with us, but all of our best keepers do. He's so much better than he's showing right now.
Hes been good this year, hes starting to impress me. Still inconsistent though in my opinion, but definitely a better option then Foster at the moment I would say. Foster has caused United to lose some points.
He has been quite good in my opinion too but definitely agree about the inconsistency when he's on though hes really top notch BUT unlike Foster he is very young and still learning, 21 is a ridiculously young age for a keeper of a good side like Sporting
I was always on Foster's side but after that goal on Saturday, I give up. Fergie needs to rethink the Foster experiment. We should have grabbed Given when we had the chance last year. Our best bet right now if to persuade VDS to stay on until after 2010-11.
given would have been a good one. he is proven beyond any doubt, which is the only keeper from this part of the world that i can say that about since david seamen came though.
It would have been good to have Foster play some part with England, they would probably be ok so it could have given him a confidence boost.
I think he has the talent, but he isn't using it because he isn't confident enough, meaning he makes errors which he must learn from very quickly. Fergie wouldn't just pick him for nothing.
He has plenty of talent. All he lacks is the mental side right now. If he was entirely confident in himself and the situation, and his back four reciprocated that confidence, he'd be an excellent keeper. The only trouble is, that confidence is fragile. Even Van Der Sar has had extremely poor periods of form that cost us points. The difference is he always recovers and proves again and again how good he is. He's got the respect of his back four, which Foster certainly doesn't yet. I really hope Foster gets that confidence back, because he's so so much better than everyone seems to believe right now. He's anything but untalented.