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Jamie Carragher selects Newcastle player as his ‘Man of the week’

8 years ago
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Jamie Carragher has chosen Rob Elliot as his ‘man of the week’.

Carragher says that the goalkeeper must perform if Newcastle are to have any chance of bouncing back from their current position.

However, he also says that it will take more than just a keeper playing well to sort things at St James Park.

Steve McClaren made the ludicrous claim that losing Tim Krul was the equivalent of losing up to 20 points this season.

For that to be true, Tim Krul would have to be one of the best keepers in the world (which he’s not) and his replacement(s) would have to be the worst (which they’re not, hopefully…).

As Jamie Carragher points out, Brian Clough once said that Peter Shilton was worth 10-15 points, but then he was the main man when Nottingham Forest came from nowhere to win both the league title and European Cup (twice).

Rob Elliot has only started 14 Premier League matches in his entire career and now the spotlight is most definitely on him.

Hopefully he can prove to be Newcastle United’s ‘man of the week’, at least this week anyway.

Jamie Carragher writing in The Mail:

MAN OF THE WEEK: Rob Elliot, Newcastle United

Newcastle’s abysmal season suffered a new blow when Tim Krul, their first choice goalkeeper, suffered a serious knee injury playing for Holland. Krul is good but clearly Steve McClaren thinks he is on par with Peter Shilton as he said the Dutchman was worth 18-20 points a season to Newcastle United, which is something as Brian Clough believed Shilton contributed 10-15 points to his legendary Nottingham Forest team!

Newcastle are going to need at least 40 points to stay up. If Krul was going to be responsible for half of them, where are they going to come from now? Can Newcastle beat relegation without Krul?

So you can see how much is riding on how Rob Elliot performs in Krul’s absence. He has hardly played in the Barclays Premier League over the last two seasons and his most recent clean sheet in it came at West Ham in May 2013.

Elliot only made five appearances in all competitions last year but he was between the posts for two unexpected victories — away to Manchester City in the Capital One Cup and at home to Chelsea in the league — and McClaren must hope that is some kind of omen.

If Newcastle are going to get out of the dreadful position in which they currently find themselves, it is going to take more than just a goalkeeper playing well but McClaren can ill afford any more disruption. He needs his team to start winning.

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