Fabien Barthez’s penalty mind games while playing for Man United remembered

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By Rob Swan

Published Jun 28, 2021

Fabien Barthez penalty tactics during his spell with Manchester United were controversial but effective

Few Premier League goalkeepers have been quite as unpredictable as Fabien Barthez.Capable of going from the sublime to the ridiculous week-on-week, it’s a surprise looking back that Sir Alex Ferguson stuck with the Frenchman as his first-choice goalkeeper at Manchester United for three seasons.Replacing Peter Schmeichel, arguably the greatest goalkeeper we’ve ever seen in the Premier League era, was always going to be extremely challenging for United at the end of the club’s treble-winning season in 1999.Neither Mark Bosnich nor Raymond van der Gouw fully convinced Ferguson, while the infamous Massimo Taibi was a disaster.

How much did Man Utd sign Fabien Barthez for?

Ahead of the 2000-01 campaign, United splashed out £7.8 million on World Cup winner Barthez - a British record fee for a goalkeeper at the time.

"Mark Bosnich and Raimond van der Gouw are both terrific keepers but neither have quite the personality which Schmeichel possessed," Ferguson told reporters at the time. "But Fabien has. He is a real character."

Ferguson couldn’t have summed it up better. Barthez was a real character alright.

He won two Premier League titles at Old Trafford but made some absolute howlers along the way.

Gifting two goals to Arsenal’s Thierry Henry at Highbury and playing for an offside that never came against West Ham’s Paolo Di Canio in the FA Cup are two of the bloopers that immediately spring to mind when casting your mind back to Barthez’s United spell.

He would also run out of his box from time to time, try to dribble past opponents, and even took the odd throw-in.

“I thought I was buying a goalkeeper,” Ferguson would later say. “I bought an outside left”.

Fabien Barthez's controverisal penalty tactics

But Barthez did produce his fair share of penalty saves for the Red Devils, thanks to his controversial mind games when facing spot-kicks.

As the following video shows, Barthez would stand by one post in a bid to psyche out the penalty taker, and sometimes it worked…

Fulham’s Steed Malbranque and Leicester City’s Muzzy Izzet were both victims of Barthez’s s**thouse tactics and ended up missing penalties as a result.

Barthez was more than happy to take a booking for time-wasting or gamesmanship if it meant a better chance of saving the penalty.