The Bundesliga is heading into the four week winter recess but many are concerned that a spate of goalkeeping blunders that are making Paul Robinson or a Pepe Reina look good is assuming epidemic proportions.
Five clubs have already replaced their goalkeepers but the blunders keep piling up, the latest by Energie Cottbus goalie, Tomas Piplica who headed in Bastian Schweinsteiger’s free kick into his own goal.
Schalke’s rise to the top of the table might have to do with regular goalkeeper Frank Rost being dropped in favour of Manuel Neuer who has only let in 6 goals in 9 matches. Other clubs have changed goalies but have been less successful.
“Goalkeepers in crisis,” Kicker magazine exclaimed Monday in an article that detailed the chopping and changing going on at a number of Bundesliga sides.
So is there a goalkeeper crisis going on. Andreas Köpke does not think so. “I see no reason to believe that the quality of goalkeepers is declining,” said Köpke.