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Bill's Take: I'm Worried About Handkerchief Waving Grant
Thursday, 26th Mar 2015 12:03 by Bill Riordan

A pretty much compulsory feature of any football team fan message board is the thread that allows posters to award points and make summary comments for each player’s performance in the match just finished.

Obviously there will always be a great deal of difference of opinion, but the player with most agreement is often the goalkeeper. A typical score seems to be seven out of ten, with a comment like “Couldn’t do anything about the goals - kicking was poor”. Then we move on to the rest of the team.

This has always bothered me. Isn’t it the goalkeeper’s job to do something about the goals? Isn’t that the only thing he is really there for? I certainly do not expect the keeper to save them all: the game would be a bit uninteresting if he did. But there is always something that he could do, whatever the situation.

It begins with organizing the defence: shooing them out when they defend too deep, and making sure that opposing players in the danger area are covered. Then there is his positioning: getting the angles right for crosses and shots; coming out to collect crosses, and stopping the shots.

It amounts to being in command of his penalty area, and being an integral part of the team’s defence.

I have been worried about Lee Grant for quite some time and have mentioned before in this column, about his continual refusal to come for crosses, which leads to unnecessary pressure on the defence.

Grant does not give me the impression that he does a great job of organizing the defence, as too often the players seem to be too deep, without any reaction from the keeper.

So, then we come to last Friday’s match against Wolves when their first goal came from a rather horribly misplaced pass from Forsyth; but unfortunately these things do happen, even to highly paid professionals. The resulting shot that defeated Grant looked much like quite a few we have conceded lately: a nice shot but stoppable.

The second goal was one of those which fans — Wolves fans mostly — will talk about for years. Forsyth (again) gave away the ball which resulted in Keogh making an awful hash of his clearance, sending a high looping, spinning ball back towards the Rams’ goal. It was ugly, but pretty much straight at Grant who should have produced an easy save.

Instead, to say Grant flapped at the ball would be to give him way too much credit, it reminded me of one of those old films where the maiden is standing on the dock waving a handkerchief at her hero departing for sea. I can’t prove that Lee Grant had a handkerchief in hand, but if he had it would have at least given him an excuse for his startling brain fade.

There used to be an old adage about football; along the lines of you having to be a bit mad to be a goalie. All of that diving in amongst the flying boots and getting barged about by over-aggressive forwards with sharp elbows. I don’t think it applies that applies so much to the modern keeper who has it much easier than it ever used to be, considering they are not even expected to do anything about the goals.

The irony of it all is that in Eric Steele, the Rams have a highly respected goalkeeping coach. What does the coach say in this situation? If it was me, I might be having a serious talk with Lee about his Rams future, and some things he needs to do to secure it. Or alternatively, do you recognize that playing behind our seemingly kamikaze defence, even an experienced keeper will encounter some heart stopping moments.

Perhaps this is how such a conversation between the two would unfold:

Eric: “Lee, we’re giving you a seven for the Wolves match, on account of you could do nothing about the goals.”

Lee: “Thanks, Eric. If I can keep racking up these sevens, my Rams future is assured!”

Eric: “Your kicking wasn’t very good, though.”

Anyway, much as I dislike thinking about tossing a youngster in at the deep end during the playoff push, I think it may be time to give Kelle Roos a start.

Another old football adage that came to me recently was that one about there being no such thing as a one-man team.

The closest I am aware of to a one-man team was Bradford Park Avenue in the early sixties, before they sold Kevin Hector to the Rams. They were a competitive team in the old fourth division with Kevin; as they should be, when Kevin scored 44 goals (I think) in his last full season. Then they sold Kevin to the Rams, and were out of the league within two or three years.

I wrote here a week or two ago that the heavy lifting at Derby was still being done by Nigel Clough signings; now I think that opinion may have to be re-adjusted.

I think Chris Martin was doing the heavy lifting. Given the Rams’ results since Martin’s injury, do we have to think the Rams were a one-man team? We have stopped scoring goals and are letting them in steadily.

We need Chris back for the run in.

And John Eustace.




Photo: Action Images



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CountyDownRam added 16:36 - Mar 26
I think when you critically analyse goals like this you need to get it right when apportioning blame. The second goal came from a free kick needlessly given away by Forsyth. The Wolves player then crossed and it was Forsyth NOT Keogh who sliced the ball in the air. Keogh failed in a challenge for the ball and fell on the floor further confusing Lee Grant. Grant should have done better he has admitted that but our problem is our defending and Forsyth mainly and Keogh were also culpable. To blame solely Grant after some of the match winning saves this season is unjust. The clearance was also spinning backwards and anyone who has kept at any level knows that this is a very difficult ball to deal with. Our problem lies at centre half and defending from our full backs. To single Grant out is not a fair and equitable distribution of blame on the facts.

Bradford Park Avenue survived another 4 seasons in the league after losing Kevin. They also had some useful players such as Broadbent, Bird and the other goalscorer who played alongside Kevin, Jim Fryatt scorer of nearly 200 goals in his league career and the fastest goal in the Football League. Some serious players would baulk at the fact they were being described as a one man team.
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tonyparsons11 added 23:17 - Mar 26
I agree with the thrust oif the arguement in the article.

My view is, ignoring the Wolves game to a degree, is that Lee is conceeding too many goals for the amount of shots on target. Birmingham springs to mind where I think there were 2 shots on target and two goals. At Wolves there were only 3 shots on target. Too often Lee is beaten low down at his near post.I dont know that change now is necessary but there needs to be an improvement. I agree with the point re crosses, often when hes not pressed on the line he will not come out and catch corners that heshould do to take pressure off defenders.
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