Robin Olsen (The World's Number Two)

[chrisw1]

He's clearly a decent shot stopper.  It's perfectly possible the coaching team can improve his distribution and positioning, particularly if he gets a bit more gametime which he will this season.  I'm still worried about him tbh, but other players have improved under Emery and I'm prepared to be proven wrong about Olsen.

[Pat Mustard]

I did think watching last night whether there is some method in the madness of having a GK who isn't entirely comfortable with the ball at his feet.  Having someone like Olsen is going to encourage the opposition to challenge him when he has the ball as there is the greater risk of him making a mistake, but assuming he gets the ball away we then have opponents out of position.

Other than that, I am in the camp that would like an upgrade but then whoever is behind Martinez is always going to suffer in comparison.  I'd also say that no matter how bad Olsen has been so far he's not even in the worst 3 keepers we've had in the last 10 years, never mind worst ever.

[AV84]

How hard would it be to just change the way we play, even only slightly, for when Olsen is in goal? Especially if we have a "cup squad" of sorts.

If there's even 2 defenders who will play 90% of their games with Olsen in goal.... couldn't we just tweak things slightly? While still having Olsen work on playing the preferred way?

I know it wouldn't solve the problem of if/when Martinez isn't available, but it might help Olsen's confidence over time.

[wittonwarrior]

say it straight please - he's not premiership standard (and that's being kind) gave a couple of jitters last night. 

[dave shelley]

I'd prefer to see him bladder it as hard as he could upfield as soon as it came anywhere within kicking distance as I'd have more confidence in our midfield or defence regaining the ball before any serious damage could be done which is how it stands at the moment with him trying to play it out.

[tomd2103]

He was under hardly any pressure last night and passed the ball straight to an opposition player on the edge of our box.  The worry is that he just doesn't seem to be getting any better and does at least one of these a game.

Last night's one could have quite easily led to a goal or a penalty and all of a sudden we concede when we are looking comfortable.

[brontebilly]

He's clearly a decent shot stopper.  It's perfectly possible the coaching team can improve his distribution and positioning, particularly if he gets a bit more gametime which he will this season.  I'm still worried about him tbh, but other players have improved under Emery and I'm prepared to be proven wrong about Olsen.

I don't think he's even a decent shot stopper to be honest. He's just so slow in about every movement. I really don't want him as backup, think this is one Emery is getting badly wrong. Martinez gets an injury and we will know all about it.

[OCD]

If he's making these mistakes in matches, he's making them in training. Emery and his coaching staff must feel that they can improve his distribution in time. It's painful to watch but if Emery sees his as our number 2, there must be a reason. I think Emery's quite able to be ruthless when he needs to.

[RamboandBruno]

If he's making these mistakes in matches, he's making them in training. Emery and his coaching staff must feel that they can improve his distribution in time. It's painful to watch but if Emery sees his as our number 2, there must be a reason. I think Emery's quite able to be ruthless when he needs to.

Exactly.
I don’t rate him at all, but he had a decent game last, albeit with not loads to do, but the defence was passing it back to him a lot, so he was expected to pass it around. I think its a little unfair to pick up on his one mistake last night and i have absolutely slated him in the past.

[simboy]

If he's making these mistakes in matches, he's making them in training. Emery and his coaching staff must feel that they can improve his distribution in time. It's painful to watch but if Emery sees his as our number 2, there must be a reason. I think Emery's quite able to be ruthless when he needs to.

We are clearly developing a "sweeper/keeper" approach. Emery has backed him publicly, saying we are not in the market for a second keeper. Martinez makes mistakes and his distribution has improved immeasurably since the Emery coaching team took over.

 

[kippaxvilla2]

Ruddy is leaving Blues to go to Luton.  He wouldn’t be a bad back up option to Olsen so there are keepers around.

[Drummond]

We could help them out by selling Olsen to them.

[LeeB]

Big name Prem player, current Sweden international. They'd go mad for it, they'd have him up on the 'Wall of Shame Fame' in reception before the week was out, between the pictures of Francis and Dugarry.

[Drummond]

Then they could retire the Number 1 too.

[AV84]

I was listening to Dave Watson talking to Ben Foster about Arsenal signing Reya and what that means for Ramsdale, and whether it was a good move from Artetta or not.

He made some interesting points about goalkeepers and the mindset of players who see themselves as a #1 keeper, and how its very difficult to keep two players like that happy, even at a big club. Funnily enough they also mentioned that Reya can play out from the back better than Ramsdale can and they reckon that's why Artetta has brought him in.

I just thought it was interesting in relation to our situation with Olsen. An obvious point Watson made was that as a goalkeeping coach he always wants to have as small a drop off in quality as possible between 1st and 2nd choice keepers to minimise potential disruption if #1 gets injured.

Obviously that's a problem we're faced with at the moment, but having one of the best keepers in the world as our #1 also makes it very difficult to keep the gap in quality as small as possible, and keep a second keeper of that quality happy.

I think we definitely need to upgrade Olsen, but I think its a position that we really need to get right, and I'm not sure it's going to happen this window.