The Goalkeeper Problem in Manchester

Both MU and Man.City are struggling to solve the goalkeeper problem, when the new Premier League season has gone through 2 rounds. Man.City has failed miserably while MU has not won a single match, both because of poor goalkeepers.

Coach Pep Guardiola's philosophy throughout his coaching career has been to play the ball from the goalkeeper. He does not accept long and high passes from the goalkeeper unless it is a goal-scoring opportunity and must be taken advantage of quickly. James Trafford understands this better than anyone, because the 22-year-old goalkeeper who just arrived from Burnley is a product of Man City's own training.

Just looking at the statistics from last season, anyone would have to admire Trafford without even watching him play. 12 consecutive games without conceding a goal, 33 consecutive games with only 9 goals conceded, a total of 16 goals in the entire season (including 42 games in the second division). All are records in the homeland of football. At one point, Trafford saved 2 penalties in just one game.

Goalkeeper James Trafford under pressure for Man.City

Photo: Reuters

But because of the pressure of playing from the goal, Trafford had to try to pass to his teammates in the 16m50 area and… brought disaster. He couldn’t even pass accurately at close range, allowing the opponent to suddenly have a pass that resulted in a goal. And Man.City lost to Tottenham right at home.

If the young Trafford talent does not meet the requirements of coach Guardiola's playing style, then at MU the goalkeeper problem is even more serious. Goalkeeper Altay Bayildir clearly shows that he almost does not know what to do in the face of set pieces. In just the first 2 matches, there were at least 4 times he flew and fell without touching the ball, when the opponent took a corner kick.

Coach Ruben Amorim chose Bayildir as the starting goalkeeper in the last two rounds because everyone knows that goalkeeper Andre Onana has a habit of making personal mistakes that lead to goals. So this is a real deadlock, whether Onana or Bayildir is the starting goalkeeper, MU cannot solve the goalkeeper problem.

For quite some time now, the transfer market has had a hot commodity in Gianluigi Donnarumma - a goalkeeper so good that he needs no introduction. In most cases, goalkeepers are never expensive to transfer. Yet, until yesterday, neither of the two Manchester clubs had been able to buy Donnarumma.

Initially, MU wanted Donnarumma, but found themselves unable to compete when Man.City also wanted to buy. Now, when rumors spread that Donnarumma was about to join Man.City, Coach Guardiola's team said they would only buy Donnarumma after they had completely dealt with Ederson (a famous goalkeeper who has shown signs of decline since last season). And there was a new problem: Man.City also wanted to buy Senne Lammens - the Belgian goalkeeper of Royal Antwerp, who was preparing to join MU for 17 million pounds. In the end, it was still just a vicious competition between the two Manchester teams!

Now the question is, a young goalkeeper from Antwerp, who has never been called up to the national team, is he better than Onana or Bayildir? About a week ago, the press published a list of about ten goalkeepers that MU wanted. Of course, Man.City's selection is not as chaotic as that, because they only buy goalkeepers who "know how to play football with their feet". That is another difficulty.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/bai-toan-thu-mon-tai-thanh-pho-manchester-185250826203242603.htm