**Nick Pope had a bit of a nightmare on Sunday between the sticks for Newcastle United as West Ham put three goals beyond the England hopeful.**
There was absolutely nothing he could have done about West Ham's second goal as Sven Botman put it into his own net after trying to deflect a dangerous cross, but could the 33-year-old have done better with the other two? Absolutely.
We're not here to defend Pope's performance on Sunday. Some of his decisions were shocking and rightfully deserve the criticism.
Why, oh why, did he keep opting to punch rather than catch? That decision led to Lucas Paqueta's equaliser, which he really should have saved anyway, but to play Devil's advocate on that one, the ball did swerve and dip in the air quite a bit just before it reached Pope, but still. Howay.
Aaron Ramsdale is waiting
Nick Pope opting to punch rather than catch was a huge red flag on Sunday
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West Ham's third came from a Jarrod Bowen shot that went through Pope's legs, and the Newcastle stopper wasn't able to react quickly enough to get a safe hand on the ball before Tomas Soucek poked home on the line.
It's hard to say whether he should have done better there. It's easy to watch the replays and say he should have reacted sooner, but in that situation in real time, we reckon he did all he could.
It's the punching instead of catching thing that is the big worry. Whenever we go up against a goalkeeper who opts to punch instead of catch, I always feel like we're going to have a good day; it just screams a lack of confidence.
We expect Eddie Howe to stick with Nick Pope and we back that decision
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The question is, why would Pope be lacking in confidence? Going into Sunday's game, he was well up there for clean sheets and fewest goals conceded. We were even content to put up with his woeful distribution because he's such a safe pair of hands.
But one poor game doesn't mean we should be ready to toss him aside. We expect Eddie Howe to stick with Pope in goal tonight in the Champions League, and so he should. Dropping him after that game could do irreparable damage to his confidence.
If things go sideways tonight, then by all means, we can start looking at Aaron Ramsdale to take over. Ramsdale is a top-quality goalkeeper and is more than capable of displacing Pope from the No. 1 spot, but doing so after one dodgy game does nobody any good.