If you can name 3 first team goalkeepers worse than Hennessey feel free. Not based on the last 6 or so months either, when assessing someone’s quality you have to take into account the fact that they’ve been generally poor for the years they’ve played, despite ample chances.

Of course when a players form has improved (mainly due to an improved defence IMO), you’re not allowed to then have an opinion that in general he’s still pretty garbage. But I think it’s just that some of us can see beyond an improvement defensively & accept there is a time in which this won’t be enough to pave over the cracks.

Would love to be proved wrong and am happy to accept he put in a solid performance yesterday, not as amazing as people are making out, but solid nevertheless. But I think given the 5 or so years he’s been with us, there has been enough evidence to seriously suggest he lacks the quality required for a goalkeeper at this level when it really matters for us.

I agree on the last point, though. He seems thoroughly decent as a person and I have felt sorry for him due to some of the abuse he’s received from “fans”. I think it’s entirely acceptable to make the case amongst fans in the pub/on forums etc. that he’s not very good. But would never dream of hurling abuse at him on a match day/directly sending him abuse on social media. That’s pathetic and embarrassing for any “fan” to do to a player of their football club, regardless of ability.

Edited by Mstrobez (13 Aug 2018 12.18am)

Luckily your opinion doesn’t matter, all the recent managers have had him as their first choice, they can’t all be wrong. Buying Guiata was to keep Hennessey on his toes and it has worked, since he was announced as arriving at the end of Jan he has been first class.
Trying to rubbish him, isn’t clever, he is the best we have.

Luckily I’m still entitled to it.

My point is that, he being the best we have isn’t encouraging. I’m going on 5 years of him playing for us and countless mistakes and poor goalkeeping. We’ve become better defensively, the idea Hennessey has done anything other than ordinary since then is bizarre. The credit should go to Roy and the whole of the defence.

It’s not like Hennessey hasn’t had the opportunity to prove his doubters wrong in the past. Anywhere else and he would certainly not be the number 1. Whilst you say managers have picked him, he was number 2 under Pulis. Pardew tried to replace him twice. And the only reason he played under Allardyce was because Mandanda already had one foot out the door.

Nothing against the guy personally, but I’m not gonna pretend he’s all of a sudden a good goalkeeper on the back of some performances where he didn’t have a howler.