After Alisson and Petr Cech made errors with their feet, is it time goalkeeping coaching went back to basics?

A former Premier League goalkeeper scout says the basics of goalkeeping are being overlooked, so is it time we revisited what makes a good goalkeeper?

The word from the Liverpool dressing room at Leicester City was that, for all the bravado, Alisson knew he’d got away with one. The Brazilian was contrite after his calamity of a Cruyff turn, but conscious of the fact this only ended up being a very visible error rather than an any way costly one. He’d “learned a lesson”.

That is not quite the case for Petr Cech. He made another error for Arsenal with his feet, but knows this is about something more. He effectively has to relearn the game. He has to learn how to use his feet in the modern manner, something that may well be beyond him at this point.

That is why, for all the talk that this was one of those weekends that put all eyes back on goalkeepers’ boots, it wasn’t quite that. The reality is that goalkeepers using their feet is now such a normalised part of the game that it’s old hat… but it did expose problems at the extremes of the issue, and a lot around that that may have a few unintended consequences, and take the game down unexpected paths.

As regards the path for Alisson from now on in, there has been a lot of discussion over whether the very criticism will curtail his natural game, and prevent him doing what he was specifically signed for.

That is highly unlikely to be the case, since he wasn’t signed for poorly-executed pieces of technique in danger areas.

Ultimately, it is possible to want your goalkeeper to generally be proactive and assertive with the ball at his feet as your team’s game demands and requires, but believe this was just an individual howler that shouldn’t be repeated. The Cruyff turn was self-indulgent and a consequence of actually being too comfortable on the ball.

Alisson looks dejected after his error at Leicester City (Reuters)

That ensured it was the most unnatural and unimpressive of Cruyff turns. Alisson actually started the manoeuvre before Kelechi Iheanacho had got within seven yards of him, thereby telegraphing the entire thing. That was bad enough, but was made worse by the fact he barely got any touch on the ball at all.

This, then, wasn’t a problem from playing the ball with your feet. It was just a bad piece of play, of the type anyone can be guilty of anywhere on the pitch. Leo Messi would feel bad about it, but it wouldn’t curtail his dribbling.

That’s pretty much the view of Dave Henderson, a goalkeeping coach who has also scouted the position for Premier League clubs.

“It was self-indulgent and I don’t believe that even the great Cruyff himself would attempt a Cruyff turn near his own six-yard box like that,” he tells The Independent.

“I think it’s great he made his mistake in a game his side won. That is a better trait to have for a keeper than [Loris] Karius’. I don’t think it will affect him but it could encourage the opposition to press him more for the next few weeks.”

Alisson has the technique and temperament to cope with that, but Cech?

“I think trying to turn Cech into a libero goalkeeper is impossible at this stage of his career,” Henderson argues.

That may reflect a dividing line in the history of goalkeeping coaching, and indicate a lot for the future of the position, but we’ll get to that.

It also raises a few other goalkeeping issues.

First of all, if it is obvious that Unai Emery wants to play a specific style and obvious that Arsenal have signed a goalkeeper in Bernd Leno to do so… why persist with Cech now? It feels like it’s doing more damage than necessary. Why not take the decision everyone sees as an inevitable?

It was after all what Jose Mourinho justifiably did away with Cech when Thibaut Courtois arrived in the summer of 2014, and what most successful managers have done, most prominent of all Sir Alex Ferguson. It is a uniquely decisive position, so requires decisiveness.

Petr Cech looked nervy on the ball in Arsenal’s goal (Reuters) (REUTERS)

There has only really been one prominent parallel and that was when Andre Villas-Boas delayed replacing long-time servant Brad Friedel with new signing Hugo Lloris at Tottenham Hotspur in 2012.

“They compete for a position,” Villas-Boas unsatisfactorily explained at the time. “In the end, we have made Brad the number one for the beginning of the season and we still see Brad as number-one, a player who has been tremendous in goal for us. We respect that. Hugo has been tremendous for us in exactly the same manner. It is obviously a decision I have to take, which I will take tomorrow and in the future.”

Except everyone knew what the future held.

That, however, may not be the case for goalkeeping in general.

Far from modern keepers badly needing to be trained with their feet, Henderson actually feels modern coaching has now gone too far the other way.

“The basics of goalkeeping – handling, catching crosses, judging the flight and pace of the ball – are being overlooked,” Henderson says. “These are the minimum requirements for good keeper training, in my opinion. At the moment, too much time is spent on passing and kicking even at the expense of throwing the ball, which is still easier to do than kicking accurately over 30-40 metres. But pinging it is the fashion at the moment, so you then see so many basic handling errors at a very high level. That’s because goalkeeper drills are done at too high a speed nowadays and young keepers end up failing to master the art of catching a moving object. The first thought is to deflect, then you end up with the flawed technique like Karius developed.”

Then, Liverpool needed to replace him.

You could argue it then led to this next problem with Alisson, except it is not really a problem at all. It is not a product of modern goalkeeping. It’s just an error, and far less an issue than what Arsenal have to deal with.