PL ‘Unsung heroes’ – Best goalkeeper England will never have!

Football FanCast columnist Ian Woodcock continues his look at the Premier League's ‘unsung players' by focusing
on Wigan stopper Chris Kirkland.

Chris
Kirkland may well go down as the best goalkeeper England will never have. While
he watches his compatriots stake their claim to the nation's number one jersey
he sits on in the knowledge that but for injuries the position would almost
certainly be his own. Kirkland like a great number of goalkeepers has found his
career blighted by a chronic back problem, among an assortment of other
ailments.

Kirkland arrived on the scene as Coventry fought their ultimately doomed
campaign to avoid relegation in the 2000-01 season. Although he was unable to
keep the Sky Blues up with the big boys his performances were enough to
convince then Liverpool manager Gerald Houllier to pay a monster £6 million for
the twenty year old man child. But sadly that's where things started to go
wrong for Chris. Constantly injured or off form he was loaned out to West Brom
where his injury curse struck once more. However his move to the JJB turned
things round for him.

In three seasons he has now made nearly 100 hundred performances for the
Latics. Given his previous inability to get off the injury table this is quite
a startling statistic. Not only has he played but he has played well,
exceptionally so in fact. Last season he was rewarded for his commanding
displays with two of the club's player of the year awards. This season has been
no different, although he has at least been helped out by the hugely improved
Titus Bramble and Maynor Figueroa.

Agile, confident and the size (and shape)
of a wardrobe, Chris has all the pre requisites of a first choice international
stopper. In some games this season he has been simply unbeatable. When Wigan
came to a buoyant Villa Park in January it was widely expected they would be
soundly beaten (we had thumped them four
nil at their place after all.) Kirkland had other ideas. In what can only
be described as a virtuoso performance Kirkland kept out everything we threw at
him and then some. This came in the middle of a patch of results that saw Wigan
concede just three goals in seven games. Owing much to the big man between the
posts.

With Steve Bruce looking VERY likely to be departed by the end of the week
Kirkland may now find himself at a crossroads. Bruce and his team of coaches
have understood Chris like no one else, giving him training off so he is on top
form for matches and managing to get him through seasons with hardly any games
missed. Without that stability and now nearing his prime, the question the
Leicester born stopper must now be asking himself is; What next?