Fraser Forster Is England's Best 'Keeper and Deserves a National Team Place

Arsenal are a club that knows more than most about being invincible, but there was a point in their clash against Southampton on Wednesday when goalkeeper Fraser Forster seemed unbeatable.

Had the Saints escaped the Emirates Stadium with a point, sole credit would have gone to Forster, who made a string of astonishing saves to deny Santi Cazorla, Alexis Sanchez, Danny Welbeck and the rest of the Arsenal team.

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Ultimately the former Celtic man was powerless to prevent Sanchez from scoring a winner two minutes from time, but Forster had already secured the Man of the Match award for himself, even if he hadn’t quite clinched a draw for his team.

So with Forster taking so effortlessly to the Premier League following his £10 million move from Celtic in the summer, it’s once again pertinent to examine his international credentials.

Forster doesn’t just look like a goalkeeper—his 6'7" frame makes him one of the most physically imposing No. 1s in European football—but he is a very good one at that. He's probably the best 'keeper England have at present, in fact.

His recent good run of form—with the exception of the blunder against Aston Villa—comes on the back of a solid display for England in a friendly against Scotland last month. It’s a role he deserves further opportunity to prove himself in.

And yet Roy Hodgson hasn’t exactly been Forster’s fiercest advocate. The England boss flippantly baulked at claims that the then-Celtic 'keeper could displace the error-prone Joe Hart for the crucial World Cup qualifiers against Montenegro and Poland last year. 

“Fraser has got a great future but it would be a mistake to suggest that he should be given the responsibility of these two vitally important games,” said Hodgson, as per Iain MacFarlane of the Daily Express.

“The players who have the most experience are the ones who have to make certain that they deserve it and that they are worthy of it in these two games.”

This is the sort of attitude that has held back the England team in recent years, the assumption being that those players with the best reputations are the best players for the task at hand.

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Forster has become the embodiment of the England team's and Hodgson’s stubbornness to evolve. With Hart struggling to hold on to his spot as Manchester City’s No. 1 under pressure from Manuel Pellegrini favourite Willy Caballero, Forster is quite clearly Hodgson’s best goalkeeper.

Of course, England won’t take the field again until March, when they resume qualifying for Euro 2016 against Lithuania, but the thought of dropping Hart for Forster should be at the forefront of Hodgson’s mind. 

Having shown himself to be one of the best goalkeepers in Europe over the course of two years with Celtic, Forster has long deserved a chance with the English national team. It’s an indictment on the prejudices held against Scottish football that he only has three friendly caps to his name.

Such partiality illustrates the ethos with which Hodgson picks his team. If there is one position that can be directly compared, regardless of league, team or country, it is the role of the goalkeeper. Fundamentally, a shot is a shot, and no matter who hits it, it needs saving. And frankly Forster has been doing that better than Hart of late.

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It’s most likely that Forster sought a move to the Premier League in order to improve his England chances. He may have impressed against the might of Barcelona, AC Milan and Juventus in the Champions League for Celtic, but it has taken a move to Southampton for him to catch the wider English eye.

“We like that he will be No. 1 for England,” Southampton boss Ronald Koeman explained after Forster’s arrival at the club, as per Sam Cunningham of the Daily Mail, “because that is good for him, good for his experience and good for the club.”

Forster has progressed at such a rate over the past two years or so, it’s easy to forget that when he first arrived at Celtic many questioned whether he could hold down such a pressurised position. He has since made a habit of proving his detractors wrong. Perhaps Hodgson is the last skeptic on the goalkeeper’s hit list.