Max O'Leary super keeper (or not)

[Numero Uno]

2 hours ago, transfer reader said:

I think he's got a fan club on here that drastically overrate him and are incredibly touchy about any perceived criticism of him.

That said, Max isn't a bad goalkeeper. He's a pretty average one for the Championship who excels at reaction type saves, but lacks in a few other areas.

It's not a position that urgently needs upgrading, but I think an upgrade would be needed if we want promotion.

The issue, and it’s OTIB in a nutshell, is he makes a mistake and gets labelled by a few idiots as  “the in goal” so when he has a good game other posters rush to his defence more or less labelling him “Prime Buffon”. He’s not a League 1 keeper and he won’t be leaving for a regular game in the Prem either.

The question for me is that if we are serious about being top end does he need GENUINE competition for his place like everyone else and not just “cover”.

[Roger Red Hat]

1 hour ago, Selred said:

He's a bottom third of the Championship keeper for me.

If we want to hit play offs I don't believe he's the right man between the sticks.

Good shot stopper, but can be flappy, makes a few basic errors from long shots (particularly at near post), and poor kicking.

Depends how ambitious we are.

Please list the two thirds who are better.

[REDOXO]

1 hour ago, cheese said:

If only he could save penalties!  

Max is an excellent keeper. I have never understood what some don’t see with others that see what is not there. 
 

He is decent in most areas and is up there with all of the top keepers in the division. 
 

However if I was going to be super pedantic I would suggest a penalty save would do him and us some good. 
 

 

[David Brent]

Don’t want to get told off for being positive about Max again but he’s perfectly good enough for us. Certainly not a priority for recruitment. 

[transfer reader]

1 hour ago, Citychuds said:

You say lacks in a few areas? Only things I can pinpoint are distribution and penalty stopping. Interested to know where you think he lacks. I say it because I think I underrated him because I thought he lacked a lot more than he seems to when I think about it. Im probably really tempting fate here but I actually believe this is the best ive felt about a keeper and pair of centre backs in a while. 

Certainly distribution, and that's even taking into account that he's instructed to play it to the wings which itself is an action more likely to turnover possession.

Commanding the box a bit. I admit to having the same bias that Sheltons Army has with his built, so won't go overboard there, and as Davefevs says, communication with the backline is more important so long as the right decisions are made.

But there's also been a couple of times in recent games where he's come charging out of the area needlessly presumably from poor communication. We got away with that in the Boro game. Might have been one in the Leeds game too.

Now the communication for that may not have been entirely Max's fault. 

[Riaz]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Depends how you define it I guess.

I don’t want my keeper coming for everything, what I want is a keeper who shouts he’s coming to come, and one who communicated he’s not, to stay on his line.  Max does that pretty well.  When he comes and can catch, he tries to.  If he comes to punch, he punches.

He’s generally a good decision maker, and decisive in his actions.  I think he understands he doesn’t have build to “come through everyone”, so chooses when to do so, wisely.

The soundbites you from the manager (both Nige and LM) is that he is a calming influence on those in-front of him.

Overall I think he is a more than capable Champ keeper.  When I see Patterson at Sunderland lauded, I don’t see him being any better than Max.

As of yet, we don’t know whether Max is reliable should we push on.

Without getting carried away, we might get a chance to see over the remaining 14 league games.

 

For me he is prone to dropping the ball and he also punches it too often, when he can catch it.

I'm not saying he's sh!t, by any means. But i do think he's one of the weaker players.

[Selred]

10 minutes ago, Roger Red Hat said:

Please list the two thirds who are better.

Well he's only rated 31st in WhoScored this season...

[Glen hump]

2 hours ago, Red Ferret said:

That save last night with his left leg from the fierce volley shot was immense. Guys a good goalie 

Sorry mate but that save wasn’t immense, it was a bog standard save any keeper at a half decent level should save , imo of course.

[italian dave]

21 minutes ago, Selred said:

Well he's only rated 31st in WhoScored this season...

In the Championship??

[Selred]

1 minute ago, italian dave said:

In the Championship??

Yes. Caveats though, it includes some keepers who play 1 game, its based on average rating

[Bristol Oil Services]

2 hours ago, Riaz said:

Good shot stopper. Makes plenty of saves

But the rest of his game is a bit iffy. Distribution and commanding his area.

For me he's a bottom half championship keeper.

 

Bottom half? Well, he's part of a top six defence though, along with Zak, Dickie & co. I don't know how many shots we allow the opposition and all that but only five other sides have conceded fewer. Max must've played his part.

Big Nige certainly left us with a decent, one could say top end defence, a very solid base for Liam Manning to build upon and deliver or add the desired front foot/"sexy" football  (which was perhaps not Nige's forte).

[Robinsfan]

The likelihood is most fans probably don't watch enough of the other keepers in the championships to get an idea of how good they are. The only goalkeeper I've heard being universally lauded in this division is Viktor Johansson, but that's primarily as a shot-stopper.

[ExiledAjax]

 

30 minutes ago, Selred said:

Yes. Caveats though, it includes some keepers who play 1 game, its based on average rating

Fbref hide players that haven't played many games. You'll have to decided your own "rating" but they provide some good basic numbers.

https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/keepers/Championship-Stats

Max is:

• 7th best for goals conceded per 90
• 4th best for saves per 90
• 3rd best for save %
• and all whilst facing the 5th highest number of shots on target.

Why are the numbers so good? Because we screen him really well. He faces a high number of shots, but they're from low quality chances. He's faced quite a low xG per shot on target against him. On average he's being asked to make, and is then making, easy saves.

This is borne out by the fact that his variance between goals conceded and expected goals conceded is just +0.3 for the whole season. He's saved just 0.3 goals more than you might expect. He's doing his job. Not overachieving not underachieving.

This is why I say that right now he's perfectly ok as a base on which to build a team that can seriously challenge for top 6 if we continue to protect him. The defence is a unit and if we defend well then we don't need an expensive and perfect goalkeeper. Were we not so good at the protection element then we'd need an upgrade for sure.

I'd expect us to upgrade if we were going for the title or if we ever do get promoted - but you don't need a perfect keeper to finish in the playoffs.

Edited February 14 by ExiledAjax

[Dredd]

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

He has improved for sure but no doubt a new keeper is going to be on the list this summer. Someone stronger with ball at feet and genuinely more commanding. 

I actually do doubt that theres a keeper on the shopping list this year, not a number 1 anyway. Maxs distribution in our third is generally very good, it's when he has to hit it longer then he has a bit of a weakness (though he did easily hit halfway last night with a monster throw). 
I also think it's a myth he isn't commanding. Very rarely is there any sort of mix up with him and the defence, he's more than happy to come clear the ball outside of the box and has caught more crosses this season than Bentley did in his entire stay with us. His stature probably gives the impression he isn't commanding but he actually marshals the box very well

1 hour ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Edited February 14 by Dredd

[And Its Smith]

I think a lot of fans can’t judge a keeper correctly.  Take Palace’s goal on Monday…as soon as it goes in it’s a keeper error in my view.  A lot of fans wouldn’t understand why but then Cech explains it well at half time.  If the Chelsea keeper had done better he would have saved it and then some fans would say “that’s his job”

Max is a very good championship keeper. 

[And Its Smith]

1 hour ago, Riaz said:

For me he is prone to dropping the ball and he also punches it too often, when he can catch it.

I'm not saying he's sh!t, by any means. But i do think he's one of the weaker players.

Keepers are coached and told to punch a lot more now.  That’s probably why he does it 

[Midred]

And if all players were perfect there'd be some boring matches.

[transfer reader]

11 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

I think a lot of fans can’t judge a keeper correctly.  Take Palace’s goal on Monday…as soon as it goes in it’s a keeper error in my view.  A lot of fans wouldn’t understand why but then Cech explains it well at half time.  If the Chelsea keeper had done better he would have saved it and then some fans would say “that’s his job”

Max is a very good championship keeper. 

No, the Palace goal was a good hit. Although Petrovic's positioning was a bit suspect.

However if he'd saved it it would have been lauded as a good save.

 

And with all that said, the chance should never have been allowed, but a defender dawdled on the ball losing it cheaply in a dangerous position.

 

 

And all of that is very different the the people on here that pretend that when a shot is hit straight at Max he's pulled of a save akin to Banks vs Pele

Edited February 14 by transfer reader

[IAmNick]

1 hour ago, David Brent said:

Don’t want to get told off for being positive about Max again but he’s perfectly good enough for us. Certainly not a priority for recruitment. 

I think it's a more complex question than that though. He's good enough for us in the literal sense - in that we're a mid table Championship side which he's clearly more than capable of performing well in.

The question is though, is he what Manning wants in a keeper? If his possession based, building from the back game is highly important and it's acknowledged that distribution is perhaps one of the weaker areas of Max's game (not saying he's poor, it's just not a strength) then perhaps we'll change. Not for one who is overall "better" in every department, but for one whose strengths compliment what Manning wants.

It's like how say, Williams is clearly a good Championship midfielder, but is he what Manning wants from a Championship midfielder?

[Middlesbrough Robin]

3 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

It's like how say, Williams is clearly a good Championship midfielder, but is he what Manning wants from a Championship midfielder?

The way he was spreading around the play, setting up attacks and taking good free kicks yesterday, probably yes.

[IAmNick]

Just now, Middlesbrough Robin said:

The way he was spreading around the play, setting up attacks and taking good free kicks yesterday, probably yes.

I agree, he was excellent, it was just an example.

[And Its Smith]

8 minutes ago, transfer reader said:

No, the Palace goal was a good hit. Although Petrovic's positioning was a bit suspect.

However if he'd saved it it would have been lauded as a good save.

 

And with all that said, the chance should never have been allowed, but a defender dawdled on the ball losing it cheaply in a dangerous position.

 

 

And all of that is very different the the people on here that pretend that when a shot is hit straight at Max he's pulled of a save akin to Banks vs Pele

If Petrovic had a better starting position and moved his feet better it would have looked reasonably comfortable.  It wouldn’t have been but it would have looked it. We will never agree on Max or keeping in general I’m sure!

[Davefevs]

Max’s data compared to all Championship keepers:

All of you typical technical goalkeeping stuff he’s pretty much better than average.

Passing lets him down.

[Grey Fox]

Good keeper , who has grown into the role , and is still improving. Absolute keep.

[Red from afar]

If he was in a play-off chasing team, I'd be fairly confident he wouldn't be the reason for us not making the playoffs over a whole season.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, Red from afar said:

If he was in a play-off chasing team, I'd be fairly confident he wouldn't be the reason for us not making the playoffs over a whole season.

That’s a far better use of words to describe what I was trying to say the other day.  We may have 14 games to prove / disprove!

[Rob k]

4 minutes ago, Red from afar said:

If he was in a play-off chasing team, I'd be fairly confident he wouldn't be the reason for us not making the playoffs over a whole season.

That all Depends how far off the play offs we were!! 

[Supersonic Robin]

35 minutes ago, Red from afar said:

If he was in a play-off chasing team, I'd be fairly confident he wouldn't be the reason for us not making the playoffs over a whole season.

Worth noting that I think this is probably true of almost any goalkeeper in the Championship though, given that play-off sides are generally characterised by the fact their GK doesn't have to do too much.

[Sleepy1968]

I used to go mental when crosses were put into our box during Dan Bentley's regin - he'd usually stay rooted to his line.

For that reason alone I'm content to see Max in goal, whilst at the same time conceding that there are parts of his game that could be better.

Edited February 14 by Sleepy1968

[Supersonic Robin]

IMO, Max falls into the category of "fine".

He's perfectly acceptable for where we are, but if we want to push towards the top 6 then we need to be ruthless in saying that we want more than "fine".

Unfortunately for him, when I look at our theoretical best XI, goalkeeper looks like one of the clearest positions for improvement (wide players probably being the priority assuming we continue with a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1).

FWIW, I think Max's resilience across his time at the club is commendable. As a player who has served years as a back-up and had a season as our first choice Championship goalkeeper, I think he can be considered a success of the academy.