Can he kick it, yes he can!!

[skinner05]

One good thing to come out of saturday was that we have keeper coming through who can kick.We nearly grabbed a goal from one of his kicks which reached the area and jevons turned and shot.Hit it straight to their keeper twice which takes some doing and will probably be even further when he gets a bit older, might grab us a few goals

[Deleted]

I noticed that as well. Although it should be mentioned that Glennon's kicking has been much improved rencently as well, and his all round distribution.

[hughphamism]

He looked like he was really seriously concentrating every time he kicked it!

[190119]

He certainly can kick it for sure, he will be a good 'keeper one day. don't think he will stay with us though unless he can get regular games.

[HuddsTerrier]

He's one of the few who did themself justice

Looks a good prospect and certainly he has nothing to feel down hearted about

I wonder if he and Broadbent will be out of action for Exam leave after Xmas

[Captainslapper]

How can you say he did himself justice? Bet he was well gutted with how it went. All the reports are that hes going to be an excellent keeper but the facts are he let the first bounce over both his hands and his judgement and positioning for the 2nd was awfull.
There were 2 positives from Smithies in that game. His kicking and the fact he kept himself together after those 2 blunders.
You can be all sympathetic and gentle with him cos hes so young and he shouldn't have been put in that situation yet and the defending round him was poor all you want. But the harsh reality is theyd had 2 serious efforts on goal and were 2 up because of his errors. With a more experienced (better) keeper such as Glennon it would probably have still been 0-0.
His time will come but at 17 its still a way off yet IMO.

[blueandwhiteblood]

agree there captain but sometimes they need throwing in at the deep end to see if they can swim and saturday proved he needs a few more lessons yet. glennon straight back in please sat as 3 points are a must.

[SN0W]

just watched it again on TV..... he simply wasn't up to it, understandably... but it wasn't his fault... it was ritchie and the 'ambitious' board's fault for putting him in that position

[kamaraisking]

wheres all the glennon bashers now give smithies a chance give easty said all a long there not ready yet!

[Captainslapper]

No it wasn't his fault. The kid stepped up to the mark and did his best but throwing him in a deep end thats as deep as that was unfair on the lad and I just hope it doesn't set him back confidence wise too much.
The blame lies with the owner who let our 2nd choice keeper leave in the summer but didn't provide the funds to adequately replace him leaving us with 2 very promising youngsters, neither of which are ready yet for 1st team action according to the manager and no one to realistically push Glennon for his place in the team. it would be interesting to see how many clubs in this ,or the division below (or even the conference!), only have 1 keeper their manager feels is up to playing in the 1st team in their squad?
Obviously goalkeeper cover wasn't part of davys non-existant 'ambitious plans'.

[HuddsTerrier]

That first shot was horrible to deal with, I’ve not seen the TV replay but in the ground it took a nasty bounce on a wet, slick surface and picked up speed!

It was also well placed, hit firm and came through a crowd so he won’t have seen it until late

A lot of keepers in this league would have let that in and it would have been a good save if he’d made it

The second he misjudged, but maybe he expected his centre backs would help him out instead of letting Beckford get across them – is he 100% to blame?

He also made cracking stops on the third and fourth goal. It was just by then the rest of the team had given up so L**ds had players queuing up to score from the rebounds, Sunday League stuff!

People are too hard on keepers and have too high expectations in League One IMO, look at the stick Glennon gets and compare his errors to the gaffs England’s best two keepers (Robinson and Carson) have made in the last year

Smithies did as well as expected (so can hold his head high) although obviously I expect Glennon to return on Saturday

[marshian]

Whilst this isn't a Glennon bashing post I think he would have struggled to keep a clean sheet last Saturday to be fair.

[n7t]

huddsterrier said:

He also made cracking stops on the third and fourth goal. It was just by then the rest of the team had given up so L**ds had players queuing up to score from the rebounds, Sunday League stuff!

tinyurl.com/3c8twp

3rd goalscorer looked offside at the time and still does to me.

He's blocking Smithies view when the original shot comes in and was offside at that point. Whoever it was that ran across in the build up chasing after Westlake was off the pitch, you can see him coming back on as the goal is celebrated.

Holdsworth spots it at the bottom right of picture.

[cheesyhtfc]

if he was the finished product then he would have been playing all season. He has the makings of an excellent goalie and with time and coaching im sure he will become one. The goalie is always the first one to take the blame with goals, but the second (the only one, i think, he could be blamed for) was a comedy of errors; bad marking, bad organisation, unchallenged cross, players not sticking with their men with a misjudged attempted save at the end. Not totally smithies fault by any means.

[hughphamism]

Why is it that being able to kick straight is valued so highly?
What do these keepers practice all week?

It's not just Town's keepers that seem to struggle - the l***s keeper kept kicking it straight out on Saturday adn I seem to remember Hartlepool's keeper's kicks to be worse than Rabs.

Surely they should practice it in training - it's hardly a difficult thing to master.