The Goalkeeping Situation: A Glaring Weakness

It is often speculated that for one to be a successful goalkeeper, they must possess an unsettling temperament or simply put, a craziness and an unrivalled dedication to their craft. Former Aberdeen goalkeeper and journeyman professional John Burridge was said to have sharpened his reflexes by requesting that his wife throw fruit at him when he wasn’t looking.

Good goalkeepers are neither said to mince their words or let anything, whether an opposite player or a teammate, come between them and the ball. Perhaps we romanticise the ideal concept of the man between the sticks but it is the old clichés that create a template in the mind of supporters of how a goalkeeper should appear.

When Scott Brown arrived at Pittodrie in the summer of 2014, there was little to suggest that he adhered to such criteria or was the answer to Aberdeen’s goalkeeping woes. A softly spoken Englishman, everything from his demeanour to the club that he had left in League Two Cheltenham seemed ordinary.

Almost two years on and Brown has proven himself, like many at this level, to be a decent shot stopper but not without severe question marks surrounding his overall game. Brown might have been a part of the side that kept eight consecutive clean sheets last season but was exposed for his shortcomings in a Scottish League Cup Semi-Final defeat to Dundee United and a crucial league game against Celtic.

This season, Brown was recalled to the first team following the return of the excellent Danny Ward to his parent team Liverpool. A number of strong saves in the 3-2 victory away to Ross County gave Dandies hope that their gut instincts might be proven wrong, however, as we have entered the ‘business end’ of the season it has become evident that Scott Brown’s time as an Aberdeen player is now coming to a close.

Out of contract in the summer, Brown’s performances have not been without error and on Friday evening the Englishman produced an almost impressive portfolio of mistakes, confirming suspicions that he is not good enough to play at this level.

As a team, Aberdeen’s performance at McDiarmid Park was one of the most miserable of the season. Barely registering a shot on goal, the team lacked enthusiasm, guile and even competence. We are all aware of this. Therefore, I am not laying sole responsibility for a poor team performance at the door of our goalkeeper. That being said when a team gets off to a (painfully) slow start in a match, a good goalkeeper should be able to drag his team to the break with half a chance of turning the occasion around rather than hammering the nails into the coffin himself.

Analysing the performance of Scott Brown in the first 45 minutes of this encounter reveals several flaws in the goalkeeper’s game from positioning and command of his area to distribution. There were warning signs when St. Johnstone were wrongly awarded a corner-kick, following which Scott Brown was rooted to his line as Joe Shaughnessy flashed a header on to the crossbar.

Similar injustice could be argued when a soft free-kick was awarded at the expense of Michael Rose but more striking is the goalkeeper’s positioning and organisation of the wall in anticipation of David Wotherspoon’s effort. From this angle, it appears that the position of both Simon Church and Ryan Jack are completely off and neither of the players are standing in an area that defends the goal. This is likely down to the camera angle. The responsibility to instigate effective communication, however, is that of the goalkeeper, given that he is the individual who organises the defence at set pieces. Throughout the match communication between the goalkeeper and the backline was hesitant and confused in nature as it was here in the organisation of the wall.

If we look at the second image, we then see (albeit unclearly) that Brown is positioned comfortably too far to his own left at the time of the shot, leaving a gaping space for Wotherspoon to aim at. At this point, the midfielder need only hit the ball cleanly towards the left of the goal and the goalkeeper will have given himself too much work to do in making up the ground to retrieve the effort.

Brown’s second clearcut error of the encounter is unforgivable from a goalkeeping perspective, and somehow remarkably went unpunished. The goalkeeper left his line in hope of retrieving Wotherspoon’s corner and was accurately described by Chick Young as hitting the ground “like a victim of a sniper among a bunch of his own players.”

Upon examining the replay of the event, it seems that Brown has completely misjudged the flight of the ball and realises that he is unlikely to get anywhere near it before deciding his best route of action is to con the referee into awarding an undeserved free-kick. It was a dive and an instance that only highlighted Brown’s complete uncertainty in commanding his penalty area.

Admittedly Brown was not helped by his defence as St. Johnstone secured a second goal of the evening but unfortunately, the Aberdeen faithful were treated to yet another example of the goalkeeper’s fragility. A hopeful ball into the box is headed on by Steven Anderson into the path of Steven MacLean with the striker making the slightest of contact to finish beyond Brown.

Using the word ‘slight’ in describing MacLean’s contact with the ball is generous and Brown’s flat-footed response to the striker’s mishit suggested that questionable displays in recent weeks were not unaccompanied.

 

Several botched clearances implied a nervousness in Brown’s distribution throughout the evening, completing an all-round disappointing performance. While, the goalkeeper cannot be held accountable for a team performance that was one of the worst of the season, it is justified to pinpoint the goalkeeping situation as yet again a glaring weakness going into the end of the season.

It would be safe to suggest that the Aberdeen support are eagerly anticipating the return of Danny Rogers from his successful loan spell at Falkirk but it is important that Derek McInnes secures an able competitor for the twenty-two year old.

While many of us have wanted it to work out for Scott Brown, an inoffensive professional, it seems that the pressure of playing for a team expected to be competing at the right end of the league table and in the latter stages of cups has proven beyond the goalkeeper.

Managers have remarked in the past that a good goalkeeper is worth between six and nine points a season. It must be said that memories of Danny Ward in the first half of the campaign, juxtaposed by Scott Brown in the latter half would add credence to this assessment.