Slight challenges make more work for England's #1

Shortly before kick-off at Old Trafford tomorrow, as before every England game, the band members assembled in the stands will produce a dirge that draws out a half-hearted chant from those around them. “England's No 1,” they will shout, and Paul Robinson will look up, applaud appreciatively and draw comfort — and possibly inspiration — from the fact that he has been given that privileged role for the 30th time.

Robinson, nine days short of his 27th birthday, has good reason to believe that the brass band will give music to his ears for years to come.

Even in the absence of an obvious successor, there are many who regard Robinson as a stopgap, a Chris Woods or a David James rather than a Peter Shilton or a David Seaman. Robinson is widely regarded as being England goalkeeper by default, the best of a bad lot during a fallow period in which fans mourn for another Shilton or Ray Clemence — even a Joe Corrigan or a Phil Parkes.

As yet, there is not one keeper who is in a position to mount a realistic threat to Robinson's somewhat unconvincing supremacy. Will having to go on loan in search of first-team football do them any good in terms of their prospects at Liverpool or Manchester United? There is no way back for Chris Kirkland at Anfield, perhaps not for Scott Carson either, while Ben Foster's hopes of becoming first-choice goalkeeper for United are threatened by Tomasz Kuszczak and, in theory, Tim Howard, as well as the evergreen Edwin van der Sar.

In some ways, these are times of plenty for English goalkeepers but until Kirkland, for example, manages to put together the run of games that can prove he is over the injury concerns, Robinson is effectively unchallenged. And so he is left in the strange position of having to justify himself and his record in the face of little challenge to his position.

Recent history suggests that tomorrow's game may be a repeat of the Andorra experience for Robinson. That, after all, is how goalkeepers are always telling us they like it.

Source: Oliver Kay in The Times