A rushed attempt at THE KARIUS SCALE. Obviously we all have vastly differing opinions on not only what makes a good goal keeper, but what we need from a keeper.
PL 17/18 GKs definitely more reliable than Karius (5):
De Gea, Ederson, Courtois, Pickford, Pope.
PL 17/18 GKs confidently more reliable than Karius (3):
Ryan, Schmeichel, Dubravka.
PL 17/18 GKs I think could've done a better job for us than Karius last year (5):
Butland, Lloris, Fabianski, Hennessey, Foster.
That's 13 already. Could I beat the drum convincingly for Karius to say that he at least did better for us than Lossl, Begovic, Adrian, McCarthy, and Cech would have? I don't know. Like Karius, they had plenty of shaky moments. Would I swap any of them for Karius? Probably not, but if I had them, I wouldn't buy Karius to replace them either.
Who else does that leave that played many games? Forster? Gomes? Hart? Elliot? Darlow? They were poor. Speroni? Ancient, but did fine filling in. Karnezis? Stats don't seem great, but can't recall much of his play this year to really judge.
So out of the 27 keepers who played 10+ games this year, I'd consider Karius somewhere in the middle of the pack at the moment. Is he talented enough to make that top 8? Sure. But then so is, say, Karl Darlow. But like Darlow, Karius is likely to also frustrate us as much as wow, and that's not good enough for Newcastle, so it shouldn't be good enough for us either.
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