Friday 25 April 2014

Manonne recovers with great performance vs Chelsea

With Manonne's one mistake that cost Sunderland a miracle game against Man City, he proved he can deal with the mental overload of the British papers and criticism from anyone and everyone (especially those who don't have goalkeeping insight!). This season in the Premier League there has been quite the amount of goalkeeping concerns and bumbling and bungled efforts that have shown just how tough the pressure of the modern game is on us goalkeepers (not that I play to this level!). To be a goalkeeper, you have to be almost rubber skinned when it comes to the rigours of the psychological 'game within the game'.

Manonne made some spectacular stops including a double save that helped Sunderland get the points against Chelsea at the weekend. To be able to play at this level, you need a bounce-back-ability game in game out to be able to get your team the points. Your team wants the best out of you to achieve the best you can for a season, so you need to be 'in the zone' every single game. Getting down about mistakes only makes things worse as you go into a downward spiral and stop believing in yourself. So a goalkeeper has to be able to let things slide (not performance wise!), and let go of them, like water off a duck's back as they say.

And Manonne has proven this, after being thrown into the fire with Westwood's injury. Showing flickers of brilliance at Arsenal when deputising, the agility and athleticism is there, he has shown he can handle the pressure most recently with the Black Cats. But either way, as a youngster or a amateur goalkeeper, a lot can be learnt about how he dealt with the situation; both personally and professionally. Being a goalkeeper might just be the most miserable position in sports sometimes, and it takes a tough cookie to be their best all the time.

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