Howard ready to end his sabbatical from international football

Robles has played so little for the first team it will take time for him to get settled but, given a run, he showed last year that he's capable of stepping up. He should never have been so quickly dropped after his run of clean sheets last year.

One of RMs many mistakes last year was picking on reputation rather than form.

Look at sides we should be in amongst this season, Spurs and Southampton for instance. They have Lloris and Forester, levels and levels above Robles.

Big one for RM this for me. He needs to tell Howard shite like last season won't be tolerated and extra travel for US games won't help.

If they're anything like my two little ones, I know exactly why Tim came to this decision...

He should be intelligent enough to know this himself – he is kidding himself if he thinks he can manage both. His ego is talking. Martinez should have a quiet word, as he has backed him so much.

If Tim wants to play internationals, put Robles in and give him time and let Tim sit on the bench for a while, and I think he may reconsider and we will see a hungrier, better keeper.

The man didn't look decent in the three EPL games he played in last year, he looked awkward, unsure, uncoordinated, and only Sterling's selfishness and Jag's spectacular goal saving clearance (off of a Robles positional mistake) kept his precious cleen sheets and the points in two of the three games.

Flash forward to now and Robles still looks awkward, unsure, uncoordinated, and this time his mistakes and poor form allowed at least two of the three goals versus Arsenal. He was twelve yards off his line and still couldn't get to a ball coming directly at him from 20 plus yards away. He was not victimized by a deflection of the ball in any of the goals. He simply let them in.

As for Howard not playing in internationals then I guess the same logic applies to the English, Irish, Scottish, and Belgian players as well as DelBoy if he gets called? People must be forgetting that Howard had a very good year two seasons ago leading Lloris,Hart, de Gea, and Cech in most categories at the same time the US was playing qualifying matches which have even more riding on them than friendlies.

Howard, a long time servant of the club, is in his last few years as a starting keeper, not due to deficiencies in his technique but rather because of his age. He can't go on forever but Robles is not the answer.

About as many as you make for Howard.

Don't like saying it this way, but if Tim has found a motivation to "try harder", I'm all in. He's going nowhere this season.

Jim, your criticism of Robles (Jags clearing up for him) is unfair, as Jags does this for Howard on a reg he is a marvellous shot-stopper. He doesn't command his area enough and has a tendency to stay on his line too much, sometimes almost falling backwards into his net, and perhaps a bigger unit like Robles would dominate the area more.

With a run in the side Robles could improve, surely his confidence will come with games.

As we don't seem to have yet found either a number 10 or another striker, and even a centre-half(or two), I can't see another goalie on the horizon, so one of them needs to do the business.

No such worries at club level, though...

I'm not a massive fan of Howard, I appreciate on his day he's excellent but he doesn't have enough of them and his clangers are bloody awful.

And he better not give Chelsea anything.

There was an article about negativity recently.. maybe we could do with one about mindless exaggeration.

Over the past decade(ish), we have been fortunate to have Tim as he's been a quality goalkeeper, but he's past his best. We have other players who need replacing too but, with a goalkeeper, his mistakes are too costly to afford.

I didn't make excuses for Howard. I commented that other international players play and it doesn't effect them. Relying upon actual statistics, I pointed out factually the performance of TH two seasons ago when he was playing international friendlies. Last season, he actually didn't play in any and his performance went down for Everton by the way.

I simply cannot stand the continual criticism of a player who has been good for so many years for the club for reasons such as his taking pictures on a beach and his wages. Really? Nor can I stand the gross exaggerations of how many points he cost Everton without recognizing the points he saved them or that the centre-back pairing change from the previous season and lack of practicing defending may have had something to do with the additional goals scored against him.

Excuses are he didn't get to play last season, he is only 25 years old, etc. Howard is 36 and is nearing his last season of full-time first place goalkeeping. How is that an excuse? Please enlighten me. Or better yet, provide some other witty remark about his now shaved beard or him flapping, whatever that means.

Regarding Robles, you don't rate him, fair enough, I think he hasn't had a proper chance under Martinez, he looked dicey in his first games and didn't inspire confidence. Then he had a few games when Howard was injured and started gaining confidence IMO, then was excluded when your man came back.

He's played one game since against Arsenal, one game in five months, he hadn't even been playing for the second team. Give him more games and let's see if he is good enough... give him a chance, for God's sake.

It would've been ideal to say thanks and goodbye to Howard post World Cup when his stock was highest. We'd still get MLS interest but I'm resigned to another year now. Here's hoping he steps it up but all I see is a slow sad decline. I would love to see a renaissance before he goes as he's always tried his best and represented us with class.

It's funny, isn't it, how the mind plays tricks when we reminisce on how good players past and present have been? Few Evertonians would I suppose ever criticize big Nev Southall, but I recall Neville having a stinking run of form towards the end of his Everton career.

I think Tim has been an excellent keeper over the years; he does have some weaknesses to his game, but he can walk away from both his club and international career with great pride IMO. If it does turn out to be his last season with Everton, then we should back him all we can. I love hearing the "USA, USA" chants home and away. That's what I will remember when Tim goes.

Robles is not good enough; it's sad, but he would be better off playing in the Championship. We should never have let John Ruddy leave us, he would have been excellent backup.

One of Howard's worst performances, at home to Palace, came on the back of a Europa League match.

I have actually backed him on here to come good again. However, this decision is just wrong. His performances having returned from international duty will be interesting.