A brief history of Heurelho Gomes

I am become Gomes, thrower of balls

Watford were battered by Manchester United on Saturday. The score was only 2-0, but it may as well have been four or five, such was United’s dominance.

“Art,” is how Jose Mourinho described his side’s performance, but if you closed your eyes and let your mind wander, it seemed for a moment he could well have been describing Heurelho Gomes, Watford’s goalkeeper, who made nine saves on the day and is also the most hilarious player in the Premier League. Which delusion makes this as good a time as any to devote a thousand words to the Brazilian, who after nearly a decade seems to have found his level in the Premier League.

Gomes’ story is about as strange as you’d expect it to be if you’ve ever watched the guy for more than five consecutive seconds. He first arrived in England in the summer 2008, signed by then Tottenham manager Juande Ramos. There followed one of the worst debut seasons in the history of goalkeeping.

I don’t remember all the specifics, but the short version is that Tottenham were in the relegation zone, Ramos was sacked in October and much, up to and including all, of it was Gomes’ fault. Gomes did a lot of bad things, but mostly he conceded goals from terrible shots and dropped crosses for no reason, or didn’t even get close enough to crosses to drop them, but certainly got close enough not to save the subsequent headers. It was bad.

Gomes’ salvation, like so many Tottenham players of the late aughts, was Harry Redknapp, whose arrival and subsequent implementation of a Peter Crouch/Rafael van der Vaart-spearheaded 4-4-2 is the subject of literally thousands of pages of Tim Sherwood’s erotic fanfiction, and also spelled the beginning of a brave new era for Gomes, who it turned out was, in fact, a professional goalkeeper, and not a Bebe-style professional imposter.

Spurs qualified for the Champions League in Redknapp’s first full season in 2009-10, the first step on their road to relevenace. More to the point, Gomes committed only one error leading directly to a goal, down from seven (seven! [seven!!]) the previous season. But Gomes, ever the tragic figure, would never get to experience the current heights of Tottenham’s success. His errors leading directly to goals ballooned back up to five in 2010-11, which was finally deemed unacceptable.

To quote from the overlooked classic that is his Wikipedia page, ahead of the 2011-12 season: “After several high-profile errors and misjudgments by Gomes, Tottenham signed 40-year-old Brad Friedel on a free transfer from Aston Villa to provide competition in the first team.” And, well, with all due respect to the 40-year-old Villa reject incarnation of Brad Friedel, that is not a pretty sentence. Tottenham signed Hugo Lloris the following summer, and Gomes, in the space of only three seasons and 13 errors leading directly to goals, was fourth-choice.

Gomes, the weirdest keeper possibly in the world, appropriately ended up with Watford, the weirdest club possibly in England. It has been, so far, a match made in heaven.

Gomes is currently having probably his best Premier League season ever. Stats for goalkeepers are strange (except for the error one, which is pretty straightforward) in that they often tell you far more about the players in front of the keeper than the keeper himself, but some of Gomes’ numbers are fascinating.

For example, he leads the league in punches, as he has done in every single on of his seasons as a starter (often by wide margins). He also leads the league in clearances, a category in which he has topped the league in three of his four full seasons as a starter (also by wide margins).

But the headline stat this year is that (whisper it) he has committed zero errors leading directly to goals, and is on track for his first ever error leading to goal-less Premier League campaign.

His performance at Old Trafford was another in an increasingly long line of excellent Gomes displays. Most of his nine saves were relatively routine — though he did make one terrific, sprawling stop to deny a point-blank Zlatan Ibrahimovic header — but then routine has historically been the one piece missing from Gomes’ repertoire.

The best part of his performance, however, was the best of every Gomes performance, which is watching him throw the ball hundreds and maybe thousands of yards over the course of a game. The first rule of Gomes is that Gomes doesn’t kick the ball out of his hands. The second rule of Gomes is that Gomes doesn’t kick the ball out of his hands, which is the first rule repeated for emphasis. There are no other rules of Gomes.

Instead, he throws it. And he throws it so far I have never watched him and not spent at least one entire passage of play wondering whether he’s also a world-class javelin thrower or discuss thrower or one of the other ones where you have to throw a thing a distance, which would explain why it’s taken him so long to become a decent goalkeeper. Would you rather be world class at something that pays no money or mediocre at something that will make you rich?

These are the sorts of questions only Heurelho Gomes can make you ask. Appreciate him while you have the chance.

Weekly awards

The Arsene Wenger Award for Unconvincing Temper Tantrums: Theo Walcott

Theo Walcott is a very difficult man to take seriously. This is partly because he’s been playing in the Premier League since the age of 16, and since then has aged approximately not at all, despite what his facial hair wants you to think. There was a time when he seemed nice and inoffensive enough not to care about, but that time passed when he spent an entire season insisting he, among many much more talented players, was the guy who needed to take free-kicks for Arsenal. Against Hull on Saturday, Walcott got very upset at Harry Maguire and subsequently the referee, and hurled the ball to communicate what his dead-behind-the-eyes facial expression obviously couldn’t: he was angry. Don’t get angry, Theo. It doesn’t suit you.

The John Terry Award for Defensive Innovation: Philippe Coutinho

Liverpool were destroying Tottenham in the first half on Saturday, but it all threatened to fall apart when they conceded a free-kick about 20 yards out. With Christian Eriksen preparing to shoot, Philippe Coutinho took it upon himself to kneel behind the five players in the Reds wall, presumably to dissuade Eriksen from taking a low free-kick.

Eriksen went high in the end. Whether that was because of Coutinho or not is a matter of debate, but keep a look out for the worst new trend in the Premier League.

The Joe Kinnear Award for Angry Managers: Slaven Bilic

Arsene Wenger was serving the final game of his four-match touchline ban on Saturday, so it was only fitting some other Premier League manager took it upon himself to get banished to the stands. The problem with Wenger getting angry is that anger is an entirely unconvincing emotion for him; intensely quizzical is about as far as he can go. This is not the case, however, with Slaven Bilic, who looks as if he’s dying a very slow and painful death, which only raises the stakes when he really does get angry, as he did during West Ham’s match against West Brom on Saturday, toward the end of which he picked up a TV microphone and threw it onto the London Stadium turf, before getting sent off. The slow wheel of managerial touchline bans rolls ever onwards.

The Tim Cahill Award for Unlikely Statistics: Hull

Hull have averaged 45.5 percent of possession this season, the fifth lowest mark in the league. Granted, they spent much of Mike Phelan’s brief tenure cowering in fear in their own 18-yard box, but things haven’t changed much on the possession front since Marco Silva’s arrival either. Hull beat Liverpool last week with only 28 percent possession, the third time in Silva’s first four league matches they saw less than 40 percent of the ball. In the fourth, they managed 47.2 percent possession against Chelsea, the least-possession oriented side in the top six. Then, this weekend, they travelled to the Emirates, spiritual home of possession stats, to play an Arsenal side that average 56.4 percent possession, and they won the possession battle, 51 to 49. Possession doesn’t win matches — obviously: Hull lost — but even so, good for you, Hull.

The Charlie Adam Award for Stupid Anger Regarding Personnel Decisions: Chelsea fans

There’s a subset of Chelsea fans who are idiots, and these idiots are angry because Nemanja Matic has been starting ahead of Cesc Fabregas in central midfield. These idiots’ stupid, unjustified anger came to a head this weekend when Matic played very badly during Chelsea’s away draw to Burnley, who are, not unrelatedly, the best home team in the history of the sport. The idiotic thinking among these idiots seems to be that Chelsea don’t need two holding midfielders, especially against defensive sides like Burnley, that Fabregas will provide an extra cutting edge in attack and besides, Kante can just do eight players worth of defensive work anyway, so who cares? I’m not an expert in league tables, but typically a 10-point lead at the top of the league table, in February no less, is an indication that a team, and its manager, are doing something right. At this point, frankly, Antonio could start 11 Matices, and it would still be the right choice. In conclusion: shut up, idiot Chelsea fans.