Top Five: Joe Hart features in Europe's most error prone keepers

Newspaper coverage recently has been dominated by Joe Hart’s latest error, and discussion of what it means for the England and Man City keeper. But everyone makes mistakes, and with goalkeepers by their nature being the last line of defence, theirs will be the costliest.

Gianluigi Buffon, Juventus 3 Goal-Costing Mistakes in Serie A

The Italian’s inclusion on this list is proof that even the best goalkeepers make mistakes.

Juventus were already 2-0 up against Lazio in August when Gianluigi Buffon saved Hernanes’ powerful thirty yard shot centrally, rather than using it’s power to propel the ball round one of the posts. As a result, Miroslav Klose was able to pounce, pulling an ultimately unimportant goal back in a game that would end 4-1.

Although Juventus beat Chievo in September, a Buffon mistake resulted in Juventus falling behind. With the full width of the pitch to aim for, he cleared a ball right to an opposing player little more than twenty yards out on the wing. More understandably, wasn’t able to deal with the resulting cross and shot, Cyril Thereau giving Chievo a lead which would eventually be reversed.

Buffon kept up his streak of a mistake a month against Fiorentina in October, this time finally costing his side points in a 4-2 defeat. Guiseppe Rossi had already scored twice to bring Fiorentina level from two down.

The legendary keeper, trying to compensate for the space his defence had left Joaquin in on the keeper’s left, rushed out, allowing the Spaniard to slot the ball past him, and put the Viola in front.

At 35, the one-time world’s most expensive keeper probably has his best days behind him. None of his three errors have been comically bad, but perhaps more should be expected from a keeper in a team as dominant as Juventus?

Oliver Baumann, Freiburg, 3 Goal-Costing Mistakes in Bundesliga, 1 in Europa League

Although Joe Hart has dominated the headlines, it could have been so much worse, his performances were nowhere near as disastrous as Freiburg’s Oliver Baumann.

Against Hamburg, the German made a series of impressive saves in the first half, but when a creative Hamburg attack threaded the ball through the Freiburg backline. He seemed determined to undo his earlier good work.

A ball was pumped long by Hamburg, but rather than waiting at the edge of his area to collect the ball, Baumann raced out just in time for the ball to bounce two feet over his head, allowing Maximillian Beister to slot into an empty net.

Early in the second half Baumann raced out again, this time to close down Pierre-Michel Lasogga, but became indecisive after leaving his area. Baumann managed to twist back into his area in time to catch the pass, a little too pacey for Lasogga. But, perhaps unsure whether he was in his area or not (he was), Baumann juggled the ball to Lasogga’s feet – allowing an U21 team-mate an open goal for the second time in the match.

Baumann, second choice keeper for Germany’s talented U21 side and captaining Freiburg for the first time, still wasn’t done. With half an hour still to play, Baumann spilled a long range shot at the feet of Rafael van der Vaart, hovering just outside the six-yard box. Baumann’s opposing captain had scored six goals already this season, so wasn’t going to pass up such an easy opportunity to seal the win.

Baumann has played every minute of Freiburg’s ten games this season, and has been credited with no other defensive errors – leading to goals or not – so it appears the weekend’s horror show was just an extreme aberration.

Except that, in a Europa League game at home to Liberec in September, Baumann failed to catch a shot from range straight at him when more or less alone in the box, instead palming the ball up and over his own head.
So maybe the weekend wasn’t that extreme an aberration then.

Joe Hart, Man City, 3 Goal-Costing Mistakes in Premier League, 2 in Champions League

Fifty Football League games while still a teenager, an England international aged 21, and a champion aged 25. Despite currently being a punching bag, Hart has achieved a lot. But of course, that doesn’t forgive his mistakes.

The first this season came against Cardiff in August. Defending a corner kick, Hart found his path blocked by Aron Gunnarsson. After giving the Icelandic midfielder a push which didn’t seem to make any difference in clearing his blocked path, Hart tried to punch the incoming ball away anyway, finding himself under the ball at a point where it was too high. Frazier Campbell was able to nod home to put the Welsh side 2-1 in front, in a game they’d eventually win 3-2.

Drawing 2-2 in the final minutes against Aston Villa, Libor Kozak flicked a ball in between Vincent Kompany and Matija Nastasic, Hart raced out to a ball he had no chance of getting to. This allowed Andreas Weimann to poke the ball around the England number one, before finishing into an empty net.

With the Aston Villa game being the last of the month, September didn’t end well for Hart, but October didn’t start any better. Despite many feeling they could pull off an upset against Bayern Munich, Hart was beaten at the near post by both Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, which made the difference in a 3-1 defeat.

And, of course, there was the poor communication which meant that in the final minutes of the weekend’s game against Chelsea, Hart came out for a ball dropping near Nastasic, while the Serb played a safety first pass that turned out to be not so safe.

Perhaps Hart can be considered unlucky to top this list. The common factor of Nastasic making poor decisions directly leading to the goals scored by Villa and Chelsea suggests the Serb should share in some of the criticism being levelled at Hart.

But mistakes have been slowly creeping his game for a while, regularly being dismissed as just one-offs. Hart’s woeful form has seen him being dropped by club manager Manuel Pellegrini.

Nicolas Penneteau, Valenciennes, 4 Goal-Costing Mistakes in Ligue 1

Following bankruptcy and rebirth in the mid-nineties, Valenciennes rose quickly from the fourth tier, and have finished comfortably in mid-table for the last six seasons.

A key part of that success has been Nicolas Penneteau, the former French U21 international who has played more than 150 games for the club in the last 7 years. But this season, he has made costly errors.

The first came in August when, drawing with Bastia, Penneteau decided to deal with a long ball forward, and in the process of ‘making himself big’ he leapt at the torso of his centre half, allowing Gianni Bruno an empty goal.

The following week against Marseille, from a corner Penneteau fumbled an admittedly powerfully headed shot which was hit straight at him, allowing the rebound to be tapped in while he scrambled around on the floor.

Against St. Etienne on September 14th, Penneateau shovelled a slow cross from the right past his defenders, into the stride of Benjamin Corgnet, who was able to open the scoring without so much as changing his body shape.

The 3 goal-costing mistakes Penneteau has made this season is equal to the number he was responsible for last season, despite being an ever present. Since the game against St. Etienne Penneateau has cost his side no further goals, suggesting he’s worked through a bad run of form.

His Squawka Performance Score last season was the 10th best for a goalkeeper in France, and his total number of saves, 110, Ligue Un’s highest.

Michael Agazzi – Cagilari, 4 Goal-Costing Errors

Cagilari’s keeper, along with Penneteau are Europe’s most costliest keepers. The Italian keeper made four goal errors this season. Perhaps what is most concerning for the Italian side is the fact the keeper has only made 14 saves from 11 appearances and as the graph above shows, despite him playing every league game this term, there have been three games where he has failed to make a single save.