Just three months ago Tim Howard was an American hero. The USA might have been knocked out of the World Cup by Belgium 2-1 after extra time in a round of 16 match but without Howard the game would not have needed extra time and the score line would have been humiliating.
Howard saved 16 Belgium attempts on goal and his performance drew rave reviews from around the globe. The game against Belgium and his general form at the World Cup in Brazil last summer also led to Howard featuring as part of marketing campaign for EA’s FIFA 2015 video game.
The 2014 World Cup Finals in Brazil was undoubtedly a high point in Howard’s career. A little over a decade before Howard was an unexpected signing by Manchester United from Metro Stars of MLS.
Goalkeeping problems had haunted Manchester United since Peter Schmeichel departed after the 1999 treble and initially Howard looked as if he might be a surprising answer to United’s dilemma.
However, a Howard error that resulted in Porto knocking Manchester United out of the Champions League in the spring of 2004 saw him dropped.
Howard did fight back and regain a starting spot but it was to prove temporary as a $4M bargain in the shape of Edwin van der Saar arrived in the summer of 2005 and solved United’s goalkeeping problem.
Everton’s then manager David Moyes took Howard on loan just before the 2006/07 season and quickly decided that the USA goalkeeper would be an ideal replacement for Nigel Martyn who had three highlight seasons in the twilight of his career.
Eight seasons on Howard has now played well over 350 matches for Everton and has proved to be something of an iron man. Howard has only missed 7 Premier starts out of Everton’s 310 Premier League matches since the start of the 2006/07 season.
But rather than picking up where he left off at the World Cup Finals Howard’s form so far this season has been a cause for concern to many Everton fans. Here is a summary of Howard's Premier League stats over the last five full seasons and the new season to date.
When a team starts to leak goals there is usually more enough blame to go around and at times this season Everton have had a defense that only WikiLeaks might be proud of. Fourteen goals allowed in just six games are in marked contrast to the 37 conceded in 38 league matches last year when Everton seemed to found a nice balance between attack and defense. Full backs Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines were encouraged to raid forward while centre backs Distin and Jagielka got extra support from Gareth Barry sitting just in front of the defense.
It was a solid approach and one that generally worked well. But it is not the case this season, mistakes have led to goals and when goals go in few stand out quite as much as the goals conceded from goalkeeping errors.
Last Sunday Howard badly misjudged a cross that finished up leading to a goal that gave Crystal Palace a surprise lead and ultimately a 3-2 away win. There was soft goal conceded against Swansea in the Capital One Cup in midweek and then there was the free kick Liverpool scored from in the Merseyside derby on Saturday.
Some described Steven Gerrard’s free kick as brilliant; others saw a ball that was hit well inside the post and not with great power. Howard’s decision as to when to move and when to leap were both open to question. (It is also only fair to acknowledge that excepting Gerrard's free kick Howard did make a couple of good and important stops.)
Tim Howard’s career has been largely defined by overcoming obstacles and holding down his starting position with Everton may just turn out to be just another challenge stared down. Howard's salary is estimated at $2.6M a year and he has another four years to run on his Everton contract. It is also true that goalkeepers can generally look forward to a longer career than out field players. But nonetheless at 35 he will be very much aware that with every year that passes makes it more likely that a manager will look to the future and go with a younger option. Just ask Chelsea's Petr Cech was arguably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League last season but now he sits on the bench as an understudy to the much younger Thibaut Courtois.
Everton manager Roberto Martinez has much work to do and a lot of decisions to make otherwise Everton are not going to be able to build on the relative success of last season. Stemming the number of goals allowed is possibly the most important one and it will be interesting to see if Martinez continues with Tim Howard as his first choice goalkeeper.
