Being a goalkeeper isn’t an easy job. You are the last line of defence. The responsibility to keep a clean sheet ultimately falls to you. When things go wrong, you are the first one to get the blame. It’s easy to be sympathetic towards the men between the sticks, but not when they make mistakes like these. These are some of the absolute stupidest, embarrassing, and mind-blowing errors in goalkeeping history. The fact that they all happened in the best league in the world only adds to their legend. If any of these keepers played for your team, then we are sorry. You’re about to cringe really hard at the worst goalkeeping mistakes in Premier League history.
The 10 Worst Goalkeeping Mistakes In Premier League History
10: Jerzy Dudek vs Manchester United – 01/12/2002
Jerzy Dudek is more likely to show you his Champions League winners medal for Liverpool than he is this moment of madness from a game against Manchester United.
After Jamie Carragher headed the ball back to Dudek, the keeper fumbled it. It slipped through his legs and into the path of Diego Forlan. Safe to say that the Uruguayan wasn’t going to miss a chance like that.
It looked like Dudek had everything under control, but the ball just slipped through his hands and right into the danger zone.
A bad day at the office for the otherwise reliable man.
9: Heurelho Gomes vs Fulham – 15/11/2008
Fulham player Simon Davies got a gift from the gods when he scored a heavily-assisted goal against Tottenham in November 2008.
The assist came not from his own player, but from the unsteady hands of Spurs keeper Heurelho Gomes.
Davies drilled a ball into the box that was heading right for the Brazilian international. Gomes must have washed his gloves with soap that day, as it slipped from his grasp and ended up flying into the net.
To give Gomes some credit, there was a deflection from defender Jonathan Woodgate. However, to take that credit away, it was a very minor one.
8: Adrian vs Southampton – 17/08/2019
It’s a tactic as old as time itself. Defender plays the ball back to the goalkeeper. Goalkeeper launches the ball upfield to start an attack. Easy peasy.
Not so for Liverpool in this match against Southampton, who conceded a sloppy goal via a slip-up from Adrian.
Virgil Van Dijk played the ball back to his keeper with the idea that it would smashed up the pitch. However, Adrian hit the ball with about a tenth of the force it needed. This send it right into the grateful feet of Danny Ings.
Back to basics for the Spaniard.
7: Artur Boruc vs Arsenal – 23/11/2013
Only former Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc knows for sure what was going through his head when this happened.
After receiving a back pass, Boruc came under pressure from Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud.
Rather than booting it away, he suddenly decides he’s Ronaldinho. He tries to shimmy and shake his way out of trouble, only for the Frenchman to pluck the ball from his feet and score the easiest goal of his career.
Fancy footwork is far from the most important part of a keeper’s skillset and Boruc demonstrated why with aplomb. If he wanted to do stepovers, he should have been a winger.
6: Massimo Taibi vs Southampton – 25/09/1999
Matt Le Tissier scored some blinders in his time in the Premier League. This was not one of them.
The Southampton man fired a tepid shot from long range directly at Manchester United’s goalkeeper. The keeper, Massimo Taibi, bent down to scoop the ball up in his hands, only for it to roll through his legs like he’d just laid an egg.
The ball trickled into the back of the net, giving Le Tissier a goal. This blunder would help the match end in a 3-3 draw.
There’s a reason Taibi doesn’t come up in conversations surrounding great Manchester United keepers.
Read More: The 10 Best Premier League Goals From Matches On Boxing Day
5: Vincente Guaita vs Sheffield United – 01/02/2020
Goals from corners can be spectacular, but not when they’re scored like this.
When playing Sheffield United in early 2020, Crystal Palace conceded a whopper of a goal from an Oliver Norwood corner.
Norwood fired a curling ball into the box that was snapped up by goalkeeper Vincent Guaita… until it wasn’t.
Guaita dropped the ball quite literally. The ball fell to the floor and very clearly crossed the line. It might have already gone in, but it was much harder to tell before this case of butter fingers.
This was the only goal in the game.
4: Ben Foster vs Norwich City – 12/05/2013
A stunning pass from Wes Hoolahan set Grant Holt on his way to the net when Norwich City played West Brom in May 2013.
Luckily, Ben Foster was there to kick the ball away. Except he must have forgotten his contact lenses that morning. He leapt about a foot into the air before kicking, completely missing the ball. This let the Canaries score their second of four goals in this contest.
What’s worse is that Holt had time to kiss his wrist and gesture to the fans before tapping the ball home. Pure housery.
3: Ian Walker vs Bolton – 10/02/2004
When Bolton striker Kevin Davies got on the end of a Youri Djorkaeff free kick in the Leicester City penalty area, fans thought the weak shot had been smothered by Foxes keeper Ian Walker.
Unfortunately, what happened next was a comedy of errors.
Walker drops the ball mid-roll, sending it bouncing around his own body. Eventually, he himself accidentally knocked it over his own line with his feet.
It’s like something out of a Laurel and Hardy sketch. Walker’s dejected look tells the entire story.
2: Gary Walsh vs Manchester United – 13/01/2001
Pressure gets to everyone sometimes, including elite level athletes.
Whilst being hounded by Teddy Sherringham, Bradford City goalie Gary Walsh tried to smack the ball out of harm’s way. Instead, he completely fluffed it, letting Sherringham in for an easy finish.
The worst part of all of this was that Walsh had held firm against United’s attack for 72 minutes. This one mistake opened the floodgates for the opposing side, who scored twice more before the 90 minutes were up.
Football can be a very cruel game sometimes.
1: Peter Enckelman vs Birmingham City – 16/09/2002
During a match with newly-promoted Birmingham City in the early days of the 02/03 season, Aston Villa defender Olof Mellburg took a seemingly harmless throw-in.
He threw the ball directly to his keeper Peter Enckelman, expecting him to play it forward.
He did not.
Instead, he failed to control the ball. This allowed it to roll past him and into the back of the net. As the ball was ruled to have touched Enckelman’s studs on the way in, the goal stood.
Villa lost 3-0 and Enckelman’s error has gone down as one of the worst in the history of the league. Despite claims that he never touched the ball, the Finnish keeper is defined by the mistake to this very day
