Despite many Cheltenham fans showing little faith in the Welsh shot stopper, Owen Evans’ recent inclusion in the League One team of the week just goes to show that there is some ability there. Evans kept a clean sheet in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Portsmouth, facing 17 shots, five of which were on target. This came despite a couple of shaky moments involving coming out for the ball and not meeting it or coming out and seeing the attempted lob hit his shoulder, two events which had some supporters a tad annoyed.
Many have been in the opinion that this season Evans’ confidence has been the real issue, so many times have we seen an attempted pass to astray or a shot make it past him and his head drop and confidence shatter, not helped at all by supporters getting on his back for occurrences not always his fault. We do often see passes fly over the intended target, but also often see good passes not met by players simply not moving, so where can the blame really be attributed to?
In 25 league appearances this season, Evans has conceded 41 times, not the best looking number but Evans has kept five clean sheets during that time and has seen half of that total go in in just six games, with notable tallies coming against Wycombe (5), Accrington and Sheffield Wednesday (4), as well as trebles against various sides. It doesn’t look good until you consider the fact that Evans has faced 111 shots on target and having to make 64 saves (or efforts blocked). You must admit that any keeper that faces over 100 shots is obviously going to concede a fair few.
More attention should be paid to the 64 saves and blocked shots (according to Fotmob) that Evans has made, with our GK making saves in all but two games (a defeat to Crewe and opening day draw against Crewe) with Evans making four or more saves in six separate games including an impressive 5 against both Portsmouth and Accrington, the former sealing his place in the team of the week.
Perhaps the questions should not be aimed at Evans, but instead at the defenders in front of him. How a back five can concede 111 shots on target in 25 games and see all the blame placed on the shot stopper is a tad unfair to say the least. With Boyle’s imminent summer departure, it’s incredibly important that at least four defenders come in to fill the three places at centre back and one at right back, leaving Ben Williams and Reece Hutchinson to battle it out for left back (Williams being the only defender I have confidence in at this level).
You may be saying that the defence is only leaky because they don’t trust their GK or because the GK doesn’t control them properly. Luckily for us we have seen two regular starting ‘keepers with Scott Flinders also donning the gloves.
In Flinders’ 17 League One games he has faced 81 shots on target, with 30 going in and 51 saved or blocked, adding this to Evans’ 111 shots on target faced gives a worrying total of 192 shots on target, a mouth watering number for those attacking against us and even more so for us as Cheltenham fans. Flinders picked up two clean sheets, with Evans having five, worrying once more.
With the two having played a different number of games, for the sake of fairness we’ll use shots on target per game and goals against per game with Evans facing 4.44 in each match and Flinders having 4.76, showing how Evans in the side leads to fewer shots on target (loosely perhaps) while Flinders concedes 1.7 goals per game compared to Evans’ 1.64, far too little in it to out right state that one is better than the other.
Shots on target narrow things down, to show a leaky defence we’ll take a look at every shot faced with Evans facing 12.32 per game (that’s 308 in total) and Flinders facing 15.1 (that’s 258 shots in total). A total of 566 shots against which really should make us think maybe it’s not the goalkeeper, maybe it’s what’s in front of him…
Evans, who spent a brief time training with the academy as a youngster, enjoyed a rather successful first season at the club, coming in for the injured Scott Flinders and performing admirably in the run up to our failed play off campaign which saw him pick up praise from all despite being on the losing side. The reaction to his return only goes to show just how good Evans was during his first stint in Gloucestershire...further posing the question... what happened?
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