[quote author=FoxForceFive link=topic=47358.msg1419956#msg1419956 date=1320067890]
[quote author=Rosco link=topic=47358.msg1419885#msg1419885 date=1320063297]
Pepe Reina is still the best goalkeeper in the Premiership, but not by the distance he used to be. I've always said I didn't think he'd age well, so I'm hoping I'm wrong on that front.
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Keepers usually get better with age, not worse.
What reasoning are you using to see him getting worse?
Is it the fact he plays so much as a sweeper keeper? Grobs managed that at a high standard for a very long time past his prime years.
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Themn has it, it's simply Reina's body type.
I don't really buy the "keepers get better with age thing" despite their being some good examples of keepers hanging around a long time. I would agree that experience and decision making should improve as a keeper ages but that's only one aspect of the job. But it's probably the only one that ever gets a mention , I don't think pundits have any idea how to judge goalkeepers (if they do I haven't been hearing it).
I don't think people appreciated just how good Reina was in his first three years here, people knew he was good but still somehow thought Cech / Given was better which is complete and utter fucking nonsense.
There's a great comparison with baseball, and how fielding was judged - they used to use fielding percentage and errors as their guide to who was and wasn't a good defender, save percentage being football's current equivalent. Fielding percentage was calculated simply on how many of the balls you caught / dropped. It never took into account how many balls a fielder was able to get to, (sabremetrics came up with a load of advanced metrics to judge defence), and I don't think we ever look properly at a keepers range and the impact that has on his ability. It just gets overlooked.
I think the classic case of bad judgement of goalkeepers is Paul Robinson (who incidentally hasn't gotten any better as he aged), to me Robinson never had the agility to be a good goalkeeper. He did however have decent hands, so he'd typically save anything hit close to him. But he was still easy enough to score against because he couldn't get across the goal all that well. He got plenty of England caps on his ability not to make mistakes, despite still being a poor keeper.
For me the key to Reina' has always been that agility, he has made saves for us that maybe three or four goalkeepers in the game could make. I don't see him retaining that agility too long into his thirties because of his size. I think it might already be slightly on the wane, based solely on the fact he never saves penalties any more.
