What To Do About Huerelho Gomes

As some of you noticed, my "real job" prevented me from actually taking in the Tottenham Hotspur match against Blackpool live this weekend, but thanks to everyone's tweets I felt like I was there on my couch dying inside along with everyone else.

The best part of my day was when a fellow Spurs fan I knew in college texted me a string of profanity, albeit mostly just different forms of "fuck". When I asked him what happened, his response was simple: "Gomes happened". Now, this didn't paint the clearest picture for me and wasn't until much later in the day that the picture of what happened became clear. But, given the past few matches I felt like I had been given enough information to figure out that what had transpired wasn't something good.

I'm sure this has been analyzed to death at this point, but it appears to me as if Gary Taylor-Fletcher took a bit of a dive. Sure, Gomes should have handled it cleanly or punched away more effectively initially, but I feel he's been harshly done to have a penalty called against him.

After his performances these last two weeks Gomes' place in Harry Redknapp's side has come under question. Rumors have long persisted that he would be sold and they have only intensified following this season's string of high profile gaffes. Is that really the best course of action? Can the career of Heurelho Gomes at Spurs be salvaged?

I'll readily admit that I am a Gomes fan, but these last few months have been enough to try even my patience. When Gomes joined Tottenham Hotspur from PSV Eindhoven, where he had amassed an impressive record by keeping clean sheets in 60% of his games, he was error prone and just generally poor. Then Harry Redknapp took over as manager and brought in Tony Parks as goalkeeping coach and Gomes experienced a revival of form.

Let's be clear, some of the saves that Gomes pulls off are downright amazing. I'm almost positive very few keepers in the world could make some of the same saves that Gomes does, but very few of those same keepers are as error prone as Tottenham's number one. Additionally he plays in front of a defensive line that is inconsistent both in their play and in who is playing in it. It's hard to be a good keeper behind shaky defenders.

The position of goalkeeper is a tricky one. Great goalkeepers are rare and they are invaluable to their club. This summer Manchester United and Arsenal will be looking for keepers and I wouldn't be surprised to see them land some of the top keepers available. An offshoot of those teams needing keepers is that the Tottenham Hotspur job immediately becomes less desirable, so who are we left with?

Quick, name a good goalkeeper. Manuel Neuer, David de Gea, Hugo Lloris, have all been linked with a move to England. The problem is that none of those keepers have ever played in England, which means they will require a period of adjustment. I think we're much more likely to see competition for players who have proven they can play at the Premier League level. Now, quick, name a good goalkeeper that plays in England. Petr Cech, Edwin Van der Sar, Pepe Reina, Joe Hart. Good, now Van der Sar excluded (because he's retiring), how many of those players would come to Spurs? None.

That means Tottenham can buy the likes of Shay Given, Ben Foster, Rob Green, Ali Al Habsi, etc. None of those names really make me feel that much better about our goalkeeping situation than I do currently. Sure, if we can get Shay Given for less than £5 million or less he'd be good competition for Gomes, but I don't fancy the others.

So, what say you Tottenham fans? Are you excited by the prospect of Rob Green in goal for Spurs next year or would you rather have another season of Gomes?