5:10pm Friday 12th March 2010
By Dave Peters
GOALKEEPING coach Martin Brennan says on loan Manchester United stopper has all the tools to carve out a career in the Premiership.
The 24-year-old has been a revelation since joining Blues and has kept three clean sheets in his last four outings.
His assured performances have given Wanderers fresh hope that they can beat the drop.
And even though he was beaten four times in Blues’ shock reversal at Stockport, his stops prevented Wycombe from being on the end of a real hiding.
Brennan said: “He ticks all the boxes and everything is there for him to have a great career.
“He has done very well in all the games since he has been here and you can see that he has been at Manchester United for so long.
“The most impressive thing about him is how calm he is. He waits for things to come to him and his confidence spreads to the team.”
Brennan, who used to coach at Spurs, rates him as being up there with Huddersfield’s Alex Smithies as the best in League One.
Smithies is being touted for a Premiership career and Brennan reckons Heaton will follow the same map.
He said: “In my opinion he will play in the Premiership.
“The big thing in the Premiership is that there are keepers who are 6ft 9ins and Tom isn’t that, but he ticks every other box apart from the height situation.”
And he believes Heaton’s desire and ability will make up for the six footer’s lack of inches.
He said: “I talk to Tom after each game and we go through the video. He tries to force me to find fault with his game because he wants to keep learning.
“He looks so deeply into his game. They do a lot of mind work at Manchester United and he is excited to be here playing matches and testing out all he’s been taught.
“He is so keen to learn that he wants to pick bits and bobs out of every game and turn it into positives.”
Heaton is out of contract at Old Trafford this summer and he has already gone on record as saying he craves first team football.
He is highly-rated in Manchester and was in the Red devils’ 24-man squad when they won the Champions League in Moscow two years ago.
He has already had loan spells at Championship clubs Cardiff and QPR and if he does leave Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad there are bound to be several clubs, including Wanderers, who would declare their interest.
Brennan said: “He’s done really well since he’s been here and we know he is enjoying it.
“He’s kept three clean sheets for us and I wouldn’t like to jinx him by suggesting how many more he might get, but hopefully it will be many more.”
Brennan paid tribute to keeper Scott Shearer who has lost his place since Heaton’s arrival and to third choice keeper Steve Arnold.
He said: “We’ve got three very good keepers here.
“I wouldn’t say that Scott Shearer has stepped up his training since Tom has come in because it is hard to stop Scott from training. You have got to keep him on a leash because he always wants to be out there training and learning more. We have to pull him and Steve Arnold back and the great thing is that are all learning off each other.”
Wanderers are planning to bring all their Centre of Excellence keepers to first team matches at Adams Park so they can learn off Heaton, Shearer or Arnold at first hand.
Brennan said: “We’d like to put them in a room where they can see the game and they will do tests and analysis afterwards.”
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