How many points is Woods going to cost us?

[IDM]

Support the fffing team for fff's sake, all 11 of them on the park!!!!!!!!  even when they make a mistake...

So the keeper makes a mistake occasionally, and you remember it, but that doesn't make him "shit".  By all means express an opinion on a moment of play or a performance, it is a free country, but this level of crtiticism is unjustified.

ANY keeper can make a mistake, even the best.  We don't get to be within a point of the top of the league with a poor keeper. 

What about the missed chances in other games?  Didn't Jones miss a sitter of a header from a rebound off the post the other week? Would you still moan had we won one or two of those games and been clear at the top?

Notts Co away?  He parried ONE cross, but recovered it.  Coventry at home?  He had little chance with any of the goals.

I am in no way saying that Jones could not improve, he certainly can, but get a grip and get behind the team FFS, and support them, whether at the games or at home!!!!!

 

[DMnumber4]

Very interesting debate is this one I have to admit.

On first glance, the ball dipped on woodsy, he fumbles it and the lad taps home; and I'd have to go with the majority who lay the blame at his door.

Being a keeper is a lot more than the physical attributes, it's mental. A pressure position where you have to concentrate and stay alert. The times of goals conceded this season seem to highlight Rovers being literally and metaphorically caught on their heels a lot.

Plus what are the alternatives? Sullivan is a) past it and b) on loan anyway, Maxted a bit raw but might be worth a try to give Woods a) competition and b) a kick up the ar$e or a loanee - compare Woods to David Button from last season and they're world's apart I'm afraid.

On the face of it however, this is Woodsy's first full season in professional football and he's been slated left, right and centre when I wouldn't expect him to be at his peak for at least another 5 years.

The expectations on him are quite surprising. He's kept ten clean sheets so far this season, which is ok - nothing more / nothing less.

I like this stat:
Michel Vorm's 14 clean sheets accounted for around 30% of Swansea's points tally last season, Gary Woods' 10 clean sheets have accounted for around 17% of Rovers' points tally thus far.

We need a happy medium between those two ranges. I'm a firm believer that, as football is a team game, Keepers = 25%, Defenders = 25%, Midfielders = 25% and Strikers 25%.

[i_ateallthepies]

A very polarised debate this one and I can see merit in both views but think the truth lays somewhere between the two.
 
Firstly, Woods is the goalkeeper we can afford.  If we had money to throw about we'd probably be prioritising other areas of the squad before looking at the keeper.
 
He definately has improved over where he was when he first replaced Sully.
 
He is better than some L1 keepers I've seen this season... every time this debate springs up I just think of the game we won at Notts County.  We scored two goals, both of which were soft to say the least and should have been saved.  If they had been against us and let in by Woods there would have been a major outcry on here.
 
The argument that goalkeepers take longer to reach their peak is of course valid but is true only in respect of their decision making and learning from their errors.  I couldn't get to the game yesterday so haven't seen the goal but reading this thread it sounds like it was an error of either poor reflexes or hand/eye coordination.  I'm not sure either of those attributes improve with age.
 
For me, given the club's resources I think we have Garry Woods for the long term, heck we stuck with him as a rookie in the Championship so we're not going to ship him out at Lg1 level when he has improved his game.
I just think that with all of the coaching they get my main gripe is why does it take so bloody long to improve basics such as commanding the six yard area!

[donnievic]

Note - Coppinger was offside anyway according to the West Stand lino.

Mind, wouldn't trust him as far as he could see..

Coppinger wasnt offside the linesman put the flag up for a goal kick

[RedJ]

Note - Coppinger was offside anyway according to the West Stand lino.

Mind, wouldn't trust him as far as he could see..

Coppinger wasnt offside the linesman put the flag up for a goal kick

I'm sure he had his flag raised as soon as it reached him (may as well have done anyway..) but happy to be proven wrong.

[donnievic]

For me he just put it horizontially instead of vertically 1st

[MachoMadness]

Macho of all the examples you listed then maybe today and Bournemouth could be described as howlers.
What about the saves at Hartlepool, Colchester, sheff united, against brentford, Crawley and Colchester again. He's won us more points this season than he's cost us

What about them? In all of those games apart from Brentford he's had the square root of f**k all to do. I know I said I'd drop it but that is at best an extreme delusion, at worst you're just pulling random games out of your arse and hoping you don't get pulled up on it. Funny thing is, the one game where everyone agrees he DID win us a point, against Swindon, you don't even mention!

Like I said I'm over it and don't see the point in harping on about it but if you're going to resort to just listing random games in the hope that people won't notice you're blatantly making stuff up because you don't have any real examples, then you deserve to be pulled up on it.

[LincsRover]

I wasn't going to get involved in this "debate" but I just can't help myself having read some of the BS on this thread - then I'll feel I've at least given my view:

1. All keepers make mistakes. Noone would say Joe Hart is a crap keeper, but he's made some howlers recently and Mancini is threatening to leave him out of the team! Would we turn him down if offered on loan? Of course not! Now I'm not saying Woodsy is as good as Joe Hart but we are a tier 3 team with a decent tier 3 goalie - I've seen much worse and, as has been said already, he is a good shot stopper but flaps a bit at set pieces & his throws yesterday were poor - and yes, he cost us a goal yesterday, but we should have scored at least 2 or 3 more.......Jones, BDB, penalty shout, Copps overhead effort! Not just down to him that we didn't win

2. It's not going to help his confidence when people sat around me in the South Stand are shouting abuse & booing him, with sarcastic cheers when he catches the ball - he's our goalie, support the team!

3. If (when?) we go up, then we'll maybe look for someone more experienced and may be able to afford one but until then, we've got Woodsy, so lets try & build his confidence, not destroy it! Strikers need confidence to score, goalies are no different, it could make all the difference!

4. Last year we had Kirkland (one game I know but he let 3 goals in!), Button & Ikeme, all decent goalies with good records, and yes, all probably better than Woodsy at the time (and probably still?) - did it keep us up?

I just think that we should support all the team and not pick out individuals as scapegoats - we win as a team and we lose as a team. Otherwise the blame game starts and things on the pitch will get much worse - we're in a great position at the moment, enjoy it & get behind the team - all of them!

 

[dickos1]

Macho of all the examples you listed then maybe today and Bournemouth could be described as howlers.
What about the saves at Hartlepool, Colchester, sheff united, against brentford, Crawley and Colchester again. He's won us more points this season than he's cost us

What about them? In all of those games apart from Brentford he's had the square root of f*** all to do. I know I said I'd drop it but that is at best an extreme delusion, at worst you're just pulling random games out of your arse and hoping you don't get pulled up on it. Funny thing is, the one game where everyone agrees he DID win us a point, against Swindon, you don't even mention!

Like I said I'm over it and don't see the point in harping on about it but if you're going to resort to just listing random games in the hope that people won't notice you're blatantly making stuff up because you don't have any real examples, then you deserve to be pulled up on it.

No sunshine I'm not pulling games out my arse, he kept us in the game at Colchester and at Hartlepool, he also pulled off a very good save against Shrewsbury and was called upon numerous times v Colchester at home.
As for just saying random games and making stuff up, that's exactly what you did to try and are a point.

[ravenrover]

Very unfair to "blame" Woods for the goal in my opinion. When the ball was actually played Hayter was at least a yard offside and lunging for the ball, as it arced around the 6 yard box numerous players threw a leg at it and at least a couple of Rovers players just stood and looked . Woods hadn't a clue whether to go for the ball or not the slightest touch from anyone would have put it in the net. Yes he made a bit of a hash of it in the end but there were anough other Rovers players in there who could have helped him out when he fumbled. JMHO

[IDM]

I wasn't going to get involved in this "debate" but I just can't help myself having read some of the BS on this thread - then I'll feel I've at least given my view:

1. All keepers make mistakes. Noone would say Joe Hart is a crap keeper, but he's made some howlers recently and Mancini is threatening to leave him out of the team! Would we turn him down if offered on loan? Of course not! Now I'm not saying Woodsy is as good as Joe Hart but we are a tier 3 team with a decent tier 3 goalie - I've seen much worse and, as has been said already, he is a good shot stopper but flaps a bit at set pieces & his throws yesterday were poor - and yes, he cost us a goal yesterday, but we should have scored at least 2 or 3 more.......Jones, BDB, penalty shout, Copps overhead effort! Not just down to him that we didn't win

2. It's not going to help his confidence when people sat around me in the South Stand are shouting abuse & booing him, with sarcastic cheers when he catches the ball - he's our goalie, support the team!

3. If (when?) we go up, then we'll maybe look for someone more experienced and may be able to afford one but until then, we've got Woodsy, so lets try & build his confidence, not destroy it! Strikers need confidence to score, goalies are no different, it could make all the difference!

4. Last year we had Kirkland (one game I know but he let 3 goals in!), Button & Ikeme, all decent goalies with good records, and yes, all probably better than Woodsy at the time (and probably still?) - did it keep us up?

I just think that we should support all the team and not pick out individuals as scapegoats - we win as a team and we lose as a team. Otherwise the blame game starts and things on the pitch will get much worse - we're in a great position at the moment, enjoy it & get behind the team - all of them!

 

+1...

[Chrisd_123]

I wasn't going to get involved in this "debate" but I just can't help myself having read some of the BS on this thread - then I'll feel I've at least given my view:

1. All keepers make mistakes. Noone would say Joe Hart is a crap keeper, but he's made some howlers recently and Mancini is threatening to leave him out of the team! Would we turn him down if offered on loan? Of course not! Now I'm not saying Woodsy is as good as Joe Hart but we are a tier 3 team with a decent tier 3 goalie - I've seen much worse and, as has been said already, he is a good shot stopper but flaps a bit at set pieces & his throws yesterday were poor - and yes, he cost us a goal yesterday, but we should have scored at least 2 or 3 more.......Jones, BDB, penalty shout, Copps overhead effort! Not just down to him that we didn't win

2. It's not going to help his confidence when people sat around me in the South Stand are shouting abuse & booing him, with sarcastic cheers when he catches the ball - he's our goalie, support the team!

3. If (when?) we go up, then we'll maybe look for someone more experienced and may be able to afford one but until then, we've got Woodsy, so lets try & build his confidence, not destroy it! Strikers need confidence to score, goalies are no different, it could make all the difference!

4. Last year we had Kirkland (one game I know but he let 3 goals in!), Button & Ikeme, all decent goalies with good records, and yes, all probably better than Woodsy at the time (and probably still?) - did it keep us up?

I just think that we should support all the team and not pick out individuals as scapegoats - we win as a team and we lose as a team. Otherwise the blame game starts and things on the pitch will get much worse - we're in a great position at the moment, enjoy it & get behind the team - all of them!

 

You mentioned Ikeme in there. Last season he made some absolute howlers, notably Millwall at Home and Leicester away and apart from one or two games was IMO a lot shakier and worse than Woods has been yet nobody picks up on that and just love jumping on the Woods bandwagon. If we were 3rd bottom and he was making more mistakes then I'd tend to agree but come off it. We're 3rd in the league ffs. We should be getting behind them and not finding any opportunity to pull the team to pieces because of a mistake.

[DMnumber4]

I wasn't going to get involved in this "debate" but I just can't help myself having read some of the BS on this thread - then I'll feel I've at least given my view:

1. All keepers make mistakes. Noone would say Joe Hart is a crap keeper, but he's made some howlers recently and Mancini is threatening to leave him out of the team! Would we turn him down if offered on loan? Of course not! Now I'm not saying Woodsy is as good as Joe Hart but we are a tier 3 team with a decent tier 3 goalie - I've seen much worse and, as has been said already, he is a good shot stopper but flaps a bit at set pieces & his throws yesterday were poor - and yes, he cost us a goal yesterday, but we should have scored at least 2 or 3 more.......Jones, BDB, penalty shout, Copps overhead effort! Not just down to him that we didn't win

2. It's not going to help his confidence when people sat around me in the South Stand are shouting abuse & booing him, with sarcastic cheers when he catches the ball - he's our goalie, support the team!

3. If (when?) we go up, then we'll maybe look for someone more experienced and may be able to afford one but until then, we've got Woodsy, so lets try & build his confidence, not destroy it! Strikers need confidence to score, goalies are no different, it could make all the difference!

4. Last year we had Kirkland (one game I know but he let 3 goals in!), Button & Ikeme, all decent goalies with good records, and yes, all probably better than Woodsy at the time (and probably still?) - did it keep us up?

I just think that we should support all the team and not pick out individuals as scapegoats - we win as a team and we lose as a team. Otherwise the blame game starts and things on the pitch will get much worse - we're in a great position at the moment, enjoy it & get behind the team - all of them!

 

You mentioned Ikeme in there. Last season he made some absolute howlers, notably Millwall at Home and Leicester away and apart from one or two games was IMO a lot shakier and worse than Woods has been yet nobody picks up on that and just love jumping on the Woods bandwagon. If we were 3rd bottom and he was making more mistakes then I'd tend to agree but come off it. We're 3rd in the league ffs. We should be getting behind them and not finding any opportunity to pull the team to pieces because of a mistake.

With regard to Ikeme, this is exactly the reason I left him out of the 'alternative' option, he made some stinkers last year, and Chris forgot to mention the dreadful pass to Beye at Birmingham where King nipped in and slotted past for three points when we looked reasonable value for a point.

Wayne Hennessey and Dorus De Vries must be dire for Saunders to stick with Ikeme considering Wolves goals against column.

[Donnybax]

Those of you slating Woods id love to know if you go to most away games? He has had some absolute stormers this season mainly Swindon away. People are saying he constantly makes mistakes every GK does but because of the postition they play it is much emphasised. I dont remember Garry making many mistakes at all this season. And someone saying they would rather have Sully now?! Haha dear me hes been terrible at Wimbledon so far he cant move anymore. Unfortunatly hes no good anymore

[benaldo]

I thought he'd improved a bit. But that's relative isn't it. Nobody on here who watches Rovers regularly would honestly say Gary Woods is a good goalkeeper, surely!?

I wouldn't have Sullivan back, but I would have a half decent goalkeeper instead of another striker.

[bobbymax]

I wasn't going to get involved in this "debate" but I just can't help myself having read some of the BS on this thread - then I'll feel I've at least given my view:

1. All keepers make mistakes. Noone would say Joe Hart is a crap keeper, but he's made some howlers recently and Mancini is threatening to leave him out of the team! Would we turn him down if offered on loan? Of course not! Now I'm not saying Woodsy is as good as Joe Hart but we are a tier 3 team with a decent tier 3 goalie - I've seen much worse and, as has been said already, he is a good shot stopper but flaps a bit at set pieces & his throws yesterday were poor - and yes, he cost us a goal yesterday, but we should have scored at least 2 or 3 more.......Jones, BDB, penalty shout, Copps overhead effort! Not just down to him that we didn't win

2. It's not going to help his confidence when people sat around me in the South Stand are shouting abuse & booing him, with sarcastic cheers when he catches the ball - he's our goalie, support the team!

3. If (when?) we go up, then we'll maybe look for someone more experienced and may be able to afford one but until then, we've got Woodsy, so lets try & build his confidence, not destroy it! Strikers need confidence to score, goalies are no different, it could make all the difference!

4. Last year we had Kirkland (one game I know but he let 3 goals in!), Button & Ikeme, all decent goalies with good records, and yes, all probably better than Woodsy at the time (and probably still?) - did it keep us up?

I just think that we should support all the team and not pick out individuals as scapegoats - we win as a team and we lose as a team. Otherwise the blame game starts and things on the pitch will get much worse - we're in a great position at the moment, enjoy it & get behind the team - all of them!

 

You mentioned Ikeme in there. Last season he made some absolute howlers, notably Millwall at Home and Leicester away and apart from one or two games was IMO a lot shakier and worse than Woods has been yet nobody picks up on that and just love jumping on the Woods bandwagon. If we were 3rd bottom and he was making more mistakes then I'd tend to agree but come off it. We're 3rd in the league ffs. We should be getting behind them and not finding any opportunity to pull the team to pieces because of a mistake.

With regard to Ikeme, this is exactly the reason I left him out of the 'alternative' option, he made some stinkers last year, and Chris forgot to mention the dreadful pass to Beye at Birmingham where King nipped in and slotted past for three points when we looked reasonable value for a point.

Wayne Hennessey and Dorus De Vries must be dire for Saunders to stick with Ikeme considering Wolves goals against column.

I think Hennessey has been crocked all season otherwise I doubt Ikeme would be playing.

[donnievic]

I thought he'd improved a bit. But that's relative isn't it. Nobody on here who watches Rovers regularly would honestly say Gary Woods is a good goalkeeper, surely!?

I wouldn't have Sullivan back, but I would have a half decent goalkeeper instead of another striker.

well I think he is and yeah I do go every game and like has been said when a keeper makes a mistake it usually ends up being a goal but anyone else it can go unpunished,"
Look at jones on sat missed a sitter at 1-1 and then a poor back pass which nearly cost us but no one is having a go at him because mistakes happen.as for the goals a few a blaming on woods earlier in season I.E Preston,cov,Bournemouth was maybe more of could of maybe done better hardly all down to him just because it was a long range shot or a scuffed shot which caught him by surprise which he seemed to go down slowly

[The Mighty Brian Rowe]

2 more? Not in the slightest bit chuffed :-(

[The Mighty Brian Rowe]

or maybe none.... :-)

[RedJ]

or maybe none.... :-)

Bennett saved his f**king skin though!

[Viking Don]

Everyone makes mistakes yes. What a great argument for us not to get a good keeper in.

One that can catch FFS.

[uros-predic]

A warning sign to draft a proper keeper in! Obviously woodsy's not quite ready

[RoversAlias]

I'd love us to bring in someone with experience, maybe aroind 28-32 years old who Woods can learn from. He obviously picked up on Sully's shot stopping ability and he has a very good but inconsistent kick on him. Got to iron out these errors and be more of a cool head though.

[ferribyrover]

A strange one this.
Is he good enough? Still not sure.
Is he one of the most improved players v last season. Most definitely yes!
He is still young so please let's not be too harsh. We are TOTL and he is ever present.

[Surrey Rover]

Threw his gloves in to the Rovers crowd as he left the pitch, his confidence is shot, we need a replacement asap, the goal he conceded tonight was truly awful.

[hoolahoop]

Threw his gloves in to the Rovers crowd as he left the pitch, his confidence is shot, we need a replacement asap, the goal he conceded tonight was truly awful.

I bet someone in the crowd managed to catch them though!! This is getting daft , we are giving teams a goal start ; it needs looking at urgently.

[dickos1]

He played well again today, a couple of decent saves that bounced in front of him. Didn't have much to do but doesn't deserve stick

[MachoMadness]

Dickos. Seriously now. He had nothing to do at all besides a couple of times when he dashed out to smother the ball, and like one shot that was straight at him. Routine stuff that any keeper in the country could do. What are your criteria for a good goalkeeper? Anyone who has two fully functioning legs and hands? Anyone who doesn't have polio? Anyone over the age of 3?

[donnievic]

Macho we get it you can't stand him no need to go on,yes we also now he was at fault tonight for the goal but I agree with dickos1 for a change he did everything right what he had to do before his blunder.

[MachoMadness]

It's not that I can't stand him. I just think he's a shit footballer. I took more of an issue with Dickos reaching and greatly overstating what he had to do than Woods' actual ability, tbh.

Anyway, I've said my bit on him so I won't mention his name again unless he gives me reason to in one way or another.