George Long and the rest of the kids...

[Silent Blade]

I suppose there will not be many on here who recall the start of Alan Hodgkinson's term keeping the Blades goal,being a very young keeper and taking over from Ted Burgin,who was a flamboyant keeper and good at commanding his box.
Alan was very poor at coming out for crosses and in many ways George Long reminds me of Alan except that he is much taller.If Long can improve and develop as Alan did then we will have a good keeper but if one looks at what is in front of Long then there is no wonder that he struggles on occasions.
Not much of a defence in my opinion
UTB

Interesting post. I was told by an older Blade that Burgin was a brilliant keeper but made some very strange mistakes. Hodgy became an England International despite not having played many games for our 1st team (I cannot think of any keeper in the last 60 or so years that became an England keeper but made less 1st team appearances than Hodgy did- something for the stattos to work on this?). My dad rated him highly but sadly I saw him play in his last year when he was not as reliable as he was

 

[Sirius]

Interesting post. I was told by an older Blade that Burgin was a brilliant keeper but made some very strange mistakes. Hodgy became an England International despite not having played many games for our 1st team (I cannot think of any keeper in the last 60 or so years that became an England keeper but made less 1st team appearances than Hodgy did- something for the stattos to work on this?). My dad rated him highly but sadly I saw him play in his last year when he was not as reliable as he was

Burgin was never afraid to leave his line and come for a ball. Very often this led to him punching, rather than catching. I don't recall the game, but one big attacker tried to balk Burgin as he came out for the ball. This happened a few times and Ted became annoyed.
In those days the area was a quagmire. Ted awaited his chance and at an opportune moment he punched the ball with one hand and gave the big lad a mud pie in the face.
Fortunately the ref missed this, or thought that it was probably deserved.

 

[Racy]

Hodgys handling under pressure at crosses was probably his only weakness but he made up for this by his decisiveness when punching the ball
Organising his defenders, anticipation, handling of ground shots he was up with the best of his day

 

[norfolkblade]

I have to say, albeit from very much an amateur goalkeepers perspective, for the first goal Long should have absolutely flown off his line and met the striker much sooner, creates much more chance of a striker fluffing his lines although of course the risk is a potential red card/pen. For the second goal I don't think there was much more he could have done, although he was parked on his arse for a fair amount of time after the initial save which was a bit odd.

I think he'll be fine, he's got good potential but first and foremost he really does need to work hard on the command of his area and not be afraid or wary of dishing out some (currently well deserved) bollockings to his defenders. This will give him some confidence (which he certainly needs) and will hopefully improve the other elements of his game such as claiming crosses as a result.