Robles battles his way to Toffees No.1
JOEL ROBLES admits that when Ronald Koeman told him he would start the season as Everton’s No. 2 goalkeeper, he took a long, hard look at his options.
The Spaniard had been there before. It was the second time he’d seemed to have established himself as firstchoice keeper, and the second time the rug had been pulled from under him.
Now Robles is back and Ronald Koeman’s summer signing, Maarten Stekelenburg, will be on the bench for today’s crucial visit to Tottenham.
“If I’m honest, for the first few weeks after the manager told me I was No. 2, I was frustrated because I fought too many times to play with this team,” he says.
“I respected the decision, but I had go home and try to understand the coach. After that, I had to work hard.
“You think you might have to move on but you need to get past that situation. When you have another chance, you make sure you don’t throw it away.
“I had to change my mentality. I needed to train harder. I needed to be strong. It’s important for a goalkeeper to be strong.
“I have had many difficult situations in my career. I had to leave Atletico Madrid to play. Here I played 10 games then Tim Howard came back and I went back to the bench.
“Maarten played well for the first part of the season and again I had to wait. Then he got an injury, and I needed to be ready for the chance.
“It’s difficult to say when I will feel I’m No.1, because if you think too much about the future, you waste time and I don’t want to do that.
“I need to focus day by day. The most important thing is the next game. If I play, I need to play well.”
When Robles was at Atletico, he went head-tohead for the keeper’s jersey, first with David De Gea, then with Thibault Courtois.
Courtois has been heralded as one of the Premier League’s top keepers this season, though Robles can boast an identical one-in-two clean sheets record when you compare the pair’s last 26 matches.
“The clean sheets aren’t so important to me,” he says. “I like only the result.
“I’m the same age as De Gea, we were together at Atletico’s academy, we are friends and we had to fight each other to be No. 1.
“I ended up leaving on loan and then David left for Manchester United. I came back and Courtois was signed and I left again!
“It was also a fight for David when he came to England. In his first year he wasn’t at a good level and it was difficult. His mentality is a good example to all goalkeepers.”