Robinson in his comfort zone

14 April 2012

There was an abundance of goalkeeping talent at one of England's training sessions earlier this week.

Ray Clemence was coaching, Nigel Martyn was commentating and Paul Robinson, the current owner of the England jersey, was leaping around in the company of his two young deputies, Chris Kirkland and Ben Foster.

The same jersey once belonged to Clemence and Martyn but it was much harder to keep in their day. Clemence had this irritatingly consistent but rather brilliant chap called Peter Shilton to contend with, not to mention Phil Parkes or Joe Corrigan.

Martyn played second fiddle to old "safe hands". Like Shilton, David Seaman proved difficult to dislodge and Martyn will be stuck forever on 23 caps.

Clemence still secured 61 in all. But how Martyn must have envied Robinson, once his young understudy at Leeds, as he nursed the stress fracture that persuaded him to retire and has so far prevented him from launching a new career as a member of the Everton coaching staff. Sky for now. Scouting later.

When Sam Allardyce was asked last season to select his England side a few months before he was interviewed for the position of England coach, he named the likeable Martyn as his goalkeeper, his view being that, although older than his Premiership contemporaries, he remained the pick of the bunch. Sven Goran Eriksson did not agree and Martyn retired from the international stage.

But it would have been interesting if Allardyce had got the job. As well as Martyn, the Bolton manager probably would have had 36-year-old David James, outstanding this season for Portsmouth, in the squad.

Robinson faces no such threat from men arguably more able and experienced. While he expects to earn his 30th cap against Macedonia, his two main rivals, in Kirkland and Foster, have just one cap between them. And injury-prone Kirkland only came on a substitute during a friendly against Greece in August.

Right now, Robinson is in something of a comfort zone. Steve McClaren dispensed with the services of James as well as David Beckham and Sol Campbell when he took charge and left the Tottenham man in little danger of losing his place prior to the European Championship in 2008.

That, however, is a slight concern. Robinson is talented. He proved as much when he first emerged at Leeds during that remarkable run to the Champions League semi-finals and he continues to remind us why Eriksson favoured him.

The save he produced to deny Lomana LuaLua and so secure a valuable victory against Portsmouth last Sunday was magnificent.

But he was not convincing in Germany and he has not been the model of consistency for Tottenham either this season, although the competition for places is somewhat lacking there. Tottenham's second-choice goalkeeper is Radek Cerny, who has made two appearances in two and a half years.

The competition will come eventually, even if it remains difficult to identify his first real challenger.

Kirkland has been loaned to Wigan by Liverpool, Foster has been loaned to Watford by Manchester United and Scott Carson has been loaned to Charlton by Liverpool, Nicky Weaver is in the side at Manchester City and Richard Wright and Robert Green are on the bench at Everton and West Ham.

Kirkland has long been considered the pretender to the throne but injuries have slowed his progress.

Which leaves Robinson in possession and in a position where he now has to defend himself against the criticism he has received, not least during the summer.

He started by rattling out a couple of statistics. If Macedonia fail to score at Old Trafford tomorrow it will be his sixth clean sheet in a row.

He said: "I've had five on the bounce. And if you take out the penalties against Portugal then I've conceded one goal in nine games."

Well it's two actually, given that Sweden scored twice in Cologne in June, but who's counting? Not Robinson.

"I think I'm going along the right lines," he said. "I aim to be one of the world's best and I hope that will come with time and with games and experience. But there's not a game for England where I've conceded a goal and thought 'that was my fault'."

Some might argue he could have denied David Healy his historic winner in Belfast last year. That said, Robinson is big enough to admit he has not always reached the required standard.

"Nobody likes to get criticism," he said. "I'm a human being and no one likes bad stuff said about them. Maybe in certain games I've not been at my best, but I don't think I've played particularly poorly.

"I'm a stronger person for playing in the World Cup. I'll be stronger for having so many eyes watching, everyone having an opinion on you and what you've done wrong and what you've done right. It certainly opened my eyes to a few things.

"You say it was all going so well for me up until the World Cup, but I don't see what I did differently or did wrong at the World Cup.

"I've got that experience of how to handle it and I can take it on into this campaign and the next one as well."

He also refutes the suggestion that there is a dearth of English goalkeeping talent.

"We talk about the lack of English keepers but there are five or six in the Premiership," he said. "There is a good nucleus there. Obviously there's not the experience. But I'd like to think the quality is there."

The evidence would suggest otherwise. For now, at least . . .

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