Couldn’t do it on a cold night in Stoke: Part One

The Premier League is an elite members club. The snobbery to those who have failed to achieve within it is untrue.

20 teams, 23 man squads. Around four hundred men will regularly vacate its pastures each season.

To be generally considered a success, you need to have really made your mark. As soon as foreign imports became common fodder in the Premier League era, the source material has become a lot more in-depth.

From the rarity in the seventies to see Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa sporting Spurs white, to now the number of foreign players outnumbering the domestic ones, it has certainly proven easier as time has gone by.

In this series I will be looking at five imports who failed to make it on our shores, and, according to the popular saying, ‘couldn’t do it on a cold night in Stoke’.

Today’s piece will be on goalkeepers. Who failed to find their feet between the sticks? And who failed to live up to their side’s hefty expectations.

1: Kostantinos CHALKIAS

It was early 2005. Only six months had passed since one of the almighty shocks in footballing history. Greece had won the European Championships, with a certain man sat on the bench in Kostas Chalkias.

Although he was sat behind Antonios Nikopolidis in the pecking order, his reputation increased just as much with the win that it was considered a coup when he arrived at Fratton Park, Portsmouth.

Chalkias struggled to maintain a number one spot during his time with Panathanaikos and bitter rivals Olympiakos, so due to foreign interest and impressive form of his understudy at the latter, Mario Galinovic, he was shipped to the doorstep of Harry Redknapp.

He made five league appearances for Pompey, during which wild antics and crazy tactical decisions led to poorly conceded goals. He was axed, replaced by Jamie Ashdown. He conceded 11 in just five games, losing four.

“Champion goalkeeper? Champion of the kebab shop maybe” was Redknapp’s response to the signing of Chalkias – a frank admission that this time, he had made a simple error.

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2: Wojciech SZCZESNY

Those of you familiar to Serie A will know the prominence of Polish star Szczesny in the Juventus goal.

But to those who wondered what happened to the erratic young keeper who was another failed Arsenal replacement for Jens Lehmann almost half a decade after the German’s departure.

I was debating including Spaniard Manuel Almunia, but the 46-time capped Pole has gone on to have a far more successful career playing with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Giorgio Chiellini and Dani Alves – his counterpart spent his latter years alongside Almen Abdi and Matej Vydra at Watford.

Szczesny spent his formative years learning his trade at Brentford before deputising for Almunia and fellow Pole Lukasz Fabianski. After the departure of those two, he became number one before the arrival of Petr Cech in 2015.

He left for a two-year loan at Roma subsequently before joining the Old Lady, where he first deputised for Gigi Buffon before taking the number one position, and he now, after Gigi’s return, shares it with the living legend himself at the Allianz Stadium.

We wonder what could’ve been if he had stayed on our shores. We will never know Wojciech. We will never know.

3: Loris KARIUS

Loris Karius was again an overdue replacement for a long serving goalkeeper – and somewhat even more underwhelming than Szczesny.

There’s the elephant in the room – the Champions League final, which is over-documented to an extreme that it somewhat overshadows the performances Karius put in during his Premier League outings.

From personal experience, I have never experienced more anxiety in a relationship between an Anfield crowd and their goalkeeper.

Karius joined in 2016 for £4.5 million from Mainz, and after the Reds had prolonged periods without success with Simon Mignolet and the latter end of Pepe Reina’s stint, the German was set to be the Reds’ number one for the distant future.

But in his intermittent 29 appearances, including a few solid ones within the backend of the 2017/18 season, were mostly filled with nervy moments which had Liverpool fans on the edge of their seats. For the wrong reasons.

He’s still on the books at Anfield, but its highly doubtful he will ever return to the hallowed turf in Liverpool Red without a miracle.

4: Massimo TAIBI

A common theme among these goalkeepers is that they follow those who have set such high standards.

For Manchester United, they had a torrid time trying to replace one of the greatest of all time in Peter Schmeichel.

After fumbling that pea-rolling Matt le Tissier shot through his legs his destiny was sealed for eternity – much akin to Loris Karius’ error in Kiev 19 years later.

He didn’t help himself in his fourth and final league appearance, where he conceded five to Chelsea helping the Red Devils to succumb to their first league defeat in a year.

The difference with Taibi and the rest of the five is that they have achieved highly in the game elsewhere despite failing to meet expectations on our shores. Taibi failed to meet expectations purely because of simple incompetence at this level.

His only two honours came in 1995, a Serie B title with Piacenza, and an Intercontinental Cup with United in 1999. Not quite up to the Serie A titles and international honours of the others in this quintet.

5: Claudio BRAVO

Finally, the most recent option is Manchester City’s now number two, Chilean veteran Claudio Bravo.

When Pep Guardiola arrived in English football in 2016, he did the unprecedented thing of placing England’s number one on the transfer list.

What was he thinking? Hart had won two Premier League titles with City, and had done it playing out from the back. Who did this manager think he was?

And after Hart had an okay stint in Turin, with his replacement potentially seeming to do a worse job.

Bravo had an established reputation. A Champions League and La Liga winner with Barcelona (although he didn’t play in the former), he seemed like the perfect fit for a Pep Guardiola tiki-taka masterclass.

But the Premier League, as we so often say, isn’t so simple. The tough battles against Stoke, Burnley and the likes proved too much for Bravo, and he was replaced by Ederson in 2017.

 

Part Two will be out next week, where we look at five of the most disappointing full-backs to arrive on English shores.

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