BBC Radio Leeds pundit Noel Whelan believes that loaned-out Newcastle United goalkeeper Freddie Woodman is very similar to Leeds’ Kiko Casilla.
Woodman, 22, joined Swansea on a season-long loan in the summer transfer window and kept his third clean sheet of the season last week when the Welsh side won 1-0 against Leeds at Elland Road.
Ex-Leeds striker Whelan claims that his former side failed to test Woodman as much as they should have but saw enough from the Magpies shot-stopper to suggest that he could be quite an error-prone player at times.
“To be honest we didn’t really test him enough. The chances we actually made didn’t actually make him work,” Whelan told Football Insider.
“We’ve not seen him at his best because we’ve not made him make saves. He seems very much like Casilla, he’s a player at the back who likes to start things off, he takes risks in playing the ball out the defender.
“Sometimes it comes off, sometimes it’s very dangerous and heart in the mouth sort of time.”
OPINION
Woodman has been in amazing form for Swansea since joining them in the summer. Whelan says that the Newcastle shot-stopper wasn’t tested in the game but he must be remembering it wrong as according to stats by WhoScored, he made three saves and claimed the ball twice when it was up in the air. Whelan does make a good point about Woodman’s passing though, especially in the match against Leeds. He only completed 62 per cent of his passes at Elland Road, which was the lowest he has had since joining the Swans on loan. Against Birmingham the week before, Woodman completed 90.6 per cent of his passes. Maybe it was a change of tactic to cope against one of the best sides in the league or maybe it was just a poor display of distribution from the 22-year-old. Either way a goalkeeper’s main job is to keep the ball out of the back of the net and Woodman is doing a fine job of that.
