Simon Mignolet

[Norbs]

£10m for him sounds good business. I'd stretch to £11m + Mignolet to get the deal done

[danperkins]

£10m for him sounds good business. I'd stretch to £11m + Mignolet to get the deal done

[Tribute]

One thing we miss massively is when Pepe used to distribute quickly, catch teams on the hop and start breaks quickly. Yes, Mig gets lots of back-passes but he's not as good as Pepe with his feet and so opposition players pick up on this and close him down quicker. Minor heart attacks in the stadium every time he goes to kick or control it. He's not commanding on crosses and stay on his line far to often. That, and a woeful back 4 in front of him, make us look like relegation battlers at the back.

[RichC]

The playing around at the back is one major problem for me as it's too ponderous we seem to be playing a lot of football at quite a slow pace at the moment which isn't helping us and the number of balls Mignolet gets back from the centre backs at the moment is ludicrous - his decent with his feet but no more than that his strengths are his shot stopping and it would be good to get back to just letting him concentrate on that for the time being and let the 10 outfield players to play the ball around.

[ronanm]

In order to have a good team you need a good spine. This guy is nowhere near the level required. Hope he's being replaced in jan. this is where the problems start.

[Norbs]

One thing we miss massively is when Pepe used to distribute quickly, catch teams on the hop and start breaks quickly. Yes, Mig gets lots of back-passes but he's not as good as Pepe with his feet and so opposition players pick up on this and close him down quicker. Minor heart attacks in the stadium every time he goes to kick or control it. He's not commanding on crosses and stay on his line far to often. That, and a woeful back 4 in front of him, make us look like relegation battlers at the back.

We were blisteringly quick at breaking last season with Mignolet in the side. He was green then and now he's had a whole year to get used to throwing the ball to a man in Red and still manages to make it look like rocket surgery

[Kenneth]

We were blisteringly quick at breaking last season with Mignolet in the side. He was green then and now he's had a whole year to get used to throwing the ball to a man in Red and still manages to make it look like rocket surgery

It's just nonsense. He distributes the ball as he's told to distribute the ball. It's not amateur five a side, players follow instructions.

[Kenneth]

Begovic is a very good keeper that has stayed way too long at Stoke and has stagnated. Would gladly take him.

He's no better than Mignolet. Buying extra cover/competition wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if we're loaded, but as I suspect we aren't then buying another keeper would be a huge distraction from filling positions where we are actually weak and that are costing us.

[danperkins]

He's no better than Mignolet. Buying extra cover/competition wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if we're loaded, but as I suspect we aren't then buying another keeper would be a huge distraction from filling positions where we are actually weak and that are costing us.

IMO he is. More presence & much more commanding around the box when it comes to crosses and set pieces. Shot stopping there is not much between them.

[captainfog]

Bit random this but has there ever been a top class footballer called Simon? I genuinely can't think of one, doesn't sound like a footballers name at all

Nope

[Norbs]

I can only think of Simon Osborn but he can't really be considered top class

[danperkins]

He ****s himself, guy is a such a panicker.

[Tee]

He ****s himself, guy is a such a panicker.

He simply does not instill confidence into his back 4. Hesitancy starts from him and quite frankly the sooner we find a quality replacement the better.

[RichC]

I don't think the dross that plays in front of him helps tbh a centre back pairing of Skrtel and Lovren certainoy won't help instill confidence in him either.

The whole central defensive area is a bit of a mess tbh

[Kenneth]

And that's what goalkeepers do is it, 'instill confidence' into the back four? It just sounds like a meaningless sound bite. If there's a cross coming in that he can get to he comes and punches it out. What exactly are we taking about because the criticism of him seems to be mostly lazy cliche? The fact that people keep going with it after he's had a few good games on the bounce is particularly puzzling. Then there's the 'if only he was more like Reina' angle, a keeper who'd end up challenging for and losing the ball near the corner flag, and flapping a near post shots, that's 'instilling confidence in the defense' I suppose.

We've shipped a load of goals this season and very few of them have been down to the goalkeeper. His mistakes have been no more frequent than any other keeper in the division. I wouldn't say he's the best keeper around but there is no way he's as bad as this thread makes out.