Colorado Rapids confirm Howard move

Of course we are also now in the market for a new keeper. I hope we have now stopped shopping at Aldi. I’d go for Butland but I’m sure he’ll be overpriced. Although I also don’t want us to sign any ’nice’ players, we need to sign some players with bottle. A midfield general that can pick out a pass will do me.

A good servant no doubt to our club and I wish him well in the MLS.

So, a new keeper could be the first Moshiri signing... wonder if we’ll see a statement of intent for such a crucial position?

I felt like he had broken through a glass ceiling a few years back when he started commanding the box more and coming out to claim crosses/corners to ease the pressure on the defence. Sadly that seemed to be just a one-season occurrence as his inability to do this became his biggest weakness the last two seasons... along with lapses in concentration.

I definitely don’t underestimate what an influence he’s been behind the scenes with the younger players and will always respect the way he’s represented Everton. Also really happy with him being an "ambassador" for Everton in the USA as you wouldn’t believe the way the game is growing over here.

Always well spoken and articulate so I think we’ll continue to see him in a media-type role speaking fondly of his time at Everton. Good luck, Tim, and thanks for all your service!

I’ll remember his as a brilliant shot stopper on his day and a consummate professional. It’s the right time... and I’m not sure if the hangover has anything to do with it.... but I actually feel a bit sad he’s leaving us.

Sad that you will be leaving with a few wanting it, but you have been our #1 goalie for a long time and most Evertonians will wish you the very best of luck as you head back home.

Also good to hear that you will be an Evertonian at heart now – you don’t realise how bad that will be for your nerves :)

Keep up your fitness levels Tim as you just never know and those two former long-serving Everton goalkeepers Ted Sagar and Neville Southall, not to mention Gordon West all tasted Wembley glory in their time at Goodison.

Good luck at the Rapids.

Quality replacement required.

If Pep decides to take Neuer with him to Man City, then Hart maybe available.

We wish you well and I for one will be rooting for you. Heck, maybe I will even come watch you in the mile-high city ... it would be one high-light of high-ly entertaining weekend :-)

He was quite good in goal most of his time...

Wish him well in Colorado, I'm sure we will Rapidly get over his passing.

On the matter of Robles, it would appear that some fans find it easy to blame him for some poor results – much like they did Howard –which is ridiculous. I think the lad deserves more support but obviously the position needs strengthening now.

So having signed a new contract at a team with a wealthy owner who will finish just outside the top 8, you leave for a club with a clown of a manager who were below you.

Think there needs to be one more signing first.

Rob, contracts are meaningless nowadays but I don't think Butland will leave for now

I wish him the best and am sure he will be a success in the US of A. Hopefully the board and manager are already looking to obtain his replacement and a quality replacement at that (look to Germany!)

I don't regard someone paid £4m per year as a 'servant'

The great 'servants' to our club are the lads (and girls) who pay their money at the gate week after week to watch the dross currently being served up to them. Money that comes from wages which, on average Tim Howard earns in a couple of days what these people earn in a year.

Sadly his best days are behind him and he probably stayed a season or two longer than he should have. Might have hurt his legacy but he should be remembered for his better years.

With Howard leaving and Robles not being all that good, does this open the door for younger keepers like Jindrich Stanek, Russell Griffiths or Mateusz Hewelt?

Personally I think young goalkeepers have zero chance of actually playing for Everton. Roberto will bring in a new expensive keeper and the youngsters will eventually be dropped to lower league teams.

Not your fault you were picked to play longer than you should have been.

Never quite made it as a top class keeper but certainly gave his all and was at his best with the likes of Lescott, Jagielka, Distin around him between 2006-2012.

Agree he has been kept on a year or two past his sell by date, should have been replaced by Butland a few year's back when the now Stoke keeper was available.

Shame he never got that 2009 FA Cup winner's medal, the weird thing is even if we somehow were to win it this year, Howard wouldn't have played any part.

Start of a new era at Goodison really, out with the old, Howard probably joined by Pienaar, Osman, Hibbert and a few other's will be leaving.

A new dawn hopefully.

Have I left anybody out?

The reason being is finding goals, 20 goals a season to be precise.

That won’t be easy to replace no matter how much we have to spend, it’s not going to be very attractive finishing in the bottom half.

The rest of them I think are all replaceable.

I don’t agree with that at all. He was very integral to our solid defensive unit for the latter half of Moyes’s reign. As said in an earlier post we did not have to worry about the goalkeeping position for quite a few years until very recently.

Like the back 4 he has become more exposed in the last 2 years due to Martinez’s tactics. Granted he has suffered a loss in form also but we shouldn’t dismiss the years in which he was a very good keeper and servant to us.

Speak for yourself.

I certainly don’t subscribe to the view that it’s only recently that the goalkeeping situation and Tim Howard’s status as a guaranteed starter deserved to come under scrutiny.

Question (for Patrick Murphy): Is he the only Everton goalkeeper to score a goal (from open play)?

Thanks for 10 years service.

As far as I’m aware, Tim is the only Everton keeper to score from open play for the club, but I stand to be corrected. In the following link perhaps Roberto could search for the new ’Rogerio Ceni’ who kept goal for Sao Paulo and scored an incredible 131 goals via free-kicks and penalties.

Scoring Keepers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_goalscoring_goalkeepers

I think a testimonial should just be a good game and the player concerned gives every fan who turns up a fiver. Say 25,000 show up. Cost? Maybe a month’s wages. What a sacrifice after being paid mega dosh for 10 years!

Then the fan could decide whether to give their fiver to charity or not according to need. Then player is saying thank you to club and fans... as it bloody should be.

So, from me, it’s "Thanks Tim for your service and enjoy one last hurrah in the USA where you are a superstar. Remember your time with the world’s greatest club fondly, and make sure you bring your kids up Blues and only speak well of us."

I think we need a quality replacement now, Joel isn’t ready and may never be.

Having said that, I wish him all the very best back home. If only he could take the village idiot with him.

The truth is, he’s never commanded his six yard box and has always had a mistake in him. A good shot stopper at close range, but that doesn’t make him a good all-round keeper.

People keep harping on about him being on the decline for the last two seasons. That’s not the case. It’s the defensive unit in front of him that’s much weaker, under stewardship of our cretin manager.

Tim Howard is only 37 years old, which isn’t that old for a goalie. Nigel Martyn was in his late thirties when he was here and was twice the keeper Howard ever was.

Anyway, good luck to Tim, I wish him all the best. I will always remember him as better than some of the dross before him eg, Myhre, Gerrard, Wright and Simonsen... but nevertheless still not very good.

Tim has been an excellent keeper for us and a passionate Everton ambassador. Yes his former suffered but I wish him well and thank him for his dedication and passion to all things blue. Once you have been chosen you are never the same. Thanks Tim, good luck to you.

Cannot argue with that apart from Mirallas I would love him to stay – a match winner on his day! Can’t help feeing he trying too hard to impress Martinez.

Hopefully Martinez will get his marching orders and he can start a fresh. I think the man management of some players by Martinez has been nothing short of disgraceful!

May he enjoy Colorado... and stay healthy long enough to help the US qualify for the World Cup.

Big thanks due to Tim for the service he has given and apologies for all the blame he has had to take for our so-called 'world class' defenders who are still bad now he's surrendered the gloves.

Good luck, mate, you served us well !

Let’s hope we get someone in fast. A very important position, especially with the way the defence is playing at the moment.

Maybe strange but if we get to the Cup final I think we should include him for at least one half if not the whole game, just a thought, His comments about being ''a lifetime Evertonian'' do him the greatest credit and I'm sure most of us would put out the royal blue carpet to welcome him if he ever visits the Old Lady in the future, I may even go to see him play in Toronto when the Rapids come to town during the summer. Very Best Wishes mate.

Can't believe he would have had no sleep, unless your saying he's a minge, and he wouldn't buy first class tickets! But to be torn between living in a different country, than your young kids, well that must be extremely difficult, especially if you are no longer with their mother.

Maybe the life he's been living, has finally caught up on him, and really affected his game. Maybe this move will help him get some of his life back?

Never been one of my favorites, but I do wish him well, because he's obviously an inspiration to many people. I just feel it should have been done at the end of last season.

Worried after consideration about us being a wealthy club. When we win the league... will it be so satisfying? For 10 mins or until an event manager orchestrates what fans must do at St George’s Hall steps.

And the players fuck off to Dubai and we tell that Koppite on Stanley Rd he was wrong.

Shit... the game looks poor to me tonight for some reason.

Tim could quite easily gone home as a hero straight after the world cup, but remained at us as asked to by the manager.

In doing the above he put Everton before himself, and probably his family.

He has said a few mad things this season, I really hope it does not tarnish his services to the club.

I would be in favour of seeing Tim return for a testimonial.

Thanks Tim, well done, good luck.

He was never going to refuse playing when he was picked to play, but it was obvious to all except RM that his best days with us were behind him. For me, he was a good servant to the club and I will try to remember him with fondness.

Jimmy Salt 58 - Now, now, that's what I call rubbing Salt into the wounds!

We're only just getting rid of one buffoon mate why get another in?

He was never a good keeper, barely average, but made the most of what he had, and out of Everton's propensity for giving stupid contracts. All this loyalty stuff is ridiculous, he was on around £70k a week and no one else ever wanted him!

Fair play to him and he’s gone in the nick of time before things really went sour. Good luck to him but I’m ecstatic he’s gone!

I will remember the first 8 years rather than the last 2. Let's hope he gets a good send off in the last game at Goodison.

In doing the above he put Everton before himself, and probably his family."

Oh come on. You’re going a bit overboard there Anthony.

I don’t want to drag a good-natured thread that basically amounts to ’thanks for being semi-decent for the last decade’ down into a discussion about whether his merits outweighed his mishaps, or whether he’s an ’air miles minge’ like someone mentioned above, but surely no one believes his staying at Everton was some selfless sacrifice?
------------

"It was a choice I hoped I would never have to make. My personal well-being and the future happiness of my own flesh and blood vs the fate of Everton Football Club sans my flapping at set-pieces. The stakes were higher than Mel Gibson when he called that police woman ’sugar tits’, because someone I loved with all my heart and soul was bound to suffer either way.

I stared over the cherubic faces of my beautiful kids and then switched my gaze to the baggy jowelled, fat, Jimmy Tarbuck faced old biddie in the front row of the Gwladys Street who used to shout "bloody dive you useless Deliverance bearded bastard"... before, during and after every single game.

Tears welled up in Tim Howard’s eyes (my eyes) as turmoil threatened to tear apart his very soul. "YOU BIG TART HOWARD!!", heckled the gobby granny in blue. That really hammered home just how hard it would be to turn my back on the brilliant match going hordes.

My kids were American. Optimism and hope came natural to them. The Everton fans were scousers and to them optimism was just that big red twat out of Transformers. They needed me just that little bit more.

So anyway, I selflessly signed the multi-multi-million pound two year contract extension that guaranteed I could carry on playing top level soccer, relatively pressure free, until I was pushing 40 yrs old and well past my best.

Deep down I didn’t really want to, you understand? There really wasn’t anything in it for me. I simply put Everton first...and as I signed, I imagined Jor El’s words from ’Superman The Movie’ booming out...except they were being spoken by Barack and not Brando: "They can be a great people T-How. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason above all...their leniency toward goalkeepers, I have sent them you, my favourite son".

By the way, Howard signed his contract extension in April 2014, well before the World Cup and his ’heroics’. Err...I probably could’ve mentioned that first I suppose and missed out all the other shite.

I do believe though that he is taking a similar wage to go home.

I do believe his family have their own family back in the states.

So my points have some validation too.

He may not have ever scaled the heights of being a top class keeper, but he has always been a top 5-7 goal keeper. He is almost ever-present in goal, he never once cried off the games due to excess travel as others have done in the past.

Once a player has stayed 10 years then surely that amounts to some common decency from his own fans.

My points were made to point to the fact that Martinez and the board put out contract offers, the players merely sign or refuse to sign.

In Tim's case, he always signed.

Martinez has ruined Howard's legacy (strong word, but can’t think of anything more appropriate), he done a similar thing with Barry last season.

Barry bounced back, Howard hasn’t.

If you look at Martinez other decisions on contract offers to aging players, Howard looks one of his better deals.

Hibbert, Osman, Gibson have all signed deals when they should have been moved on, at least Tim wanted game time and remained fit enough to play it.

John Daley #88, "semi-decent"?

As you lot like to say, bollocks.

Until last season Howard was indisputably among the top third of keepers in the Prem every year, as Danny Broderick and others have pointed out.

I’ve always made it a point to ask the "Howard sucks" crowd who else in the Premier League they would trade him for. I always got names like Hart, Cech, Lloris, de Gea, Szczesny... all far more expensive keepers from Champions League teams.

But no matter how critical they were of him, nobody ever wanted to trade him for the truly "average" guys like Vorm, Krul, Foster... when the game was on the line and the shot was coming from inside the area, the guy you wanted on the line was Howard.

Howard was very reliable under Moyes, he filled Nigel Martyn's void extremely well.

Some fans have short memories.

Has someone been at the Jack Daniels again toasting the 2nd best keeper in USA History... (after Stallone of course).

Its hard to please any Evertonian wanting perfection in goal Mike if they ever had the pleasure of watching Big Nev.

I'd have Forster actually or Bergovic if Butland isn't available. A keeper that owns his position. However how much we can spend these days we wont know until the summer. As for Robles, he is 25 and the signs aren't so bad. More confidence and experience and he might grow more into the role.

That he stayed longer than we needed him shouldn't be a criticism. If we take the supporter/emotion element out of it then being available until we no longer need you should be the definition of a reliable asset!

Players don't pick themselves. So I can only judge their intentions on actions and words. Tim was with us for 10 years and departs with some really nice sentiments expressed, even when he's been on the receiving end of some less than pleasant words from our fans.

That marks him out as a gentleman and an Evertonian for me. And if he's not playing for us anymore, then that's all I need. Good luck in the future Tim.

Good luck Tim, will be well remembered by most.

He has not performed well these past two seasons but, let's not kid ourselves, the whole team hasn't performed well past two seasons. Let's not use that as an excuse to hate him.

You’re right of course. A point I myself made regularly throughout Tim’s Everton career by incredulously asking anyone within earshot why the fuck he was so often stood a mile behind it.

To me, ’semi-decent’ seemed more a fair summing up of his lengthy spell at the club, rather than stinging criticism. I certainly don’t consider him to have been complete shite but nor do I deem him to have been someone who spread calmness throughout his defence. He has easily made more costly errors than any other goalkeeper I’ve seen play for Everton but he’s also kept us in games on numerous occasions.

I wish him nothing but good fortune for the rest of his career and I would thank him for always giving his best, but it would be beyond hypocritical for me to suddenly start bigging him up, or making out I’m sorry to see him go, after saying each summer for the past six years that the most important signing we could make would be a braver, more commanding goalkeeper.

http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/inside-mls/barack-obama-kind-of-welcomes-tim-howard-to-the-colorado-rapids-032016

(I assume he’s over there for the International break?)

David Pearl, remember I'm talking about a few years ago, when some folks considered Szczesny the next big thing. Can't say I ever rated him. And I think I'm sober enough to rate Howard #3 in US history after Friedel and Keller.

However, if we ever so much as glanced at Bungles Begovic, I would dive deep into the Daniel's and never come out. I wouldn't take that Bosnian blunder machine at gunpoint, then or now.

Obama's always happy to bring an American job back from overseas.

I put that down to Martinez as just another part of his mismanagement of Everton.

Cheers John Daley (#88) cracked me up (yet again).

Hope it works out in Colorado, all good things come to an end sometime.

Another position to put on the priority list for the summer, along with manager, captain, replacement for Lukaku (when he leaves), Osman, Hibbo, Pienaar, Gibson etc.

Going to be quite a summer (hopefully).

A good-natured thread on ToffeeWeb? BOLLOCKS!!!

His race is run as a top Premier League goalkeeper but, in my living memory as an Everton supporter, in the goalkeeping stakes, he only comes in behind Big Nev and Gordon West and vies with Nigel Martyn for 3rd-4th place behind those two greats.

As a slightly selfish note, I am also happy whenever a player has played for Manchester United or Liverpool but walks away from the dark allure of the Sky-manufactured ’El Plastico’ pseudo derby game and gets involved in a proper rivalry. That stands for any club but more so us.

That being said, cheers Tim. Enjoy the new chapter.

You've been watching a different Tim Howard than I have Mike. For me, he's never made it into a top goalkeeper for exactly those reasons.

He was never truly world class because he couldn't dominate in the air and his distribution sucked... not because he lacked cojones when it came to diving into the flying feet. I heard him criticized occasionally for OVERcommitting... never once for flinching or holding back.

If you can remember such an instance, please share.

So, who comes in to replace him?

Once or twice a season, he has a blinder, I’ll give him that, but it’s never been enough for me; I always viewed him as costing us a minimum of 10-12 points a season.