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A lot of water has passed under the bridge for Tim Howard since the last time Watford came to Goodison Park.

The Hornets' most recent visit on August 19, 2006, was also for an opening day fixture in the Premier League – Everton won 2-1 that day – but back then the American was one of the rookies in the Blues dressing room, making his first team debut.

Fast forward nine years and Howard, now 36, finds himself as Everton’s elder statesman following the summer departure of Sylvain Distin.

After dropping out of the Premier League’s top 10 for the first time since May 2006 when Howard joined the Blues, it’s fair to say that the 2015/16 campaign will be a crucial season for both club and player with Howard also looking to resume his international career after a year-long sabbatical.

From cheers to jeers

Just a year ago, Howard was riding the crest of a wave.

A national hero in the USA on the back of his heroics in Brazil – where he made a World Cup record 15 saves in their 2-1 extra time defeat to Belgium – Howard received a call of congratulation over his performance from President Barack Obama and his exploits went viral on social media where he was dubbed the US ‘secretary of defense.’

You can never rest on your laurels in football though as Howard would learn in the months ahead with Everton.

After conceding six at home to Chelsea in August, Howard struggled against Crystal Palace in September, conceding a penalty and flapping at a cross which allowed the visitors to score.

Several more difficult afternoons followed including the visit of Leicester City in February when manager Roberto Martinez was forced to defend his keeper after he was blamed for both of the Foxes’ goals.

The Catalan declared: “Tim Howard is one of our leaders, one of the most solid performers.”

Howard was already under-fire after Martinez handed him an instant recall earlier that month despite understudy Joel Robles keeping three consecutive clean sheets at the end of the nine-game spell when he deputised for the injured American.

By mid-March, the dissenting voices had become so loud that Howard felt compelled to defend his corner.

With Opta stats saying that Howard had made more errors leading to goals than any other top flight keeper that season and Sky pundits questioning his technique, the New Jersey native offered a withering response.

Howard rapped: “I think ‘To hell with the criticism.’

“I give my heart and soul to this club, to my career.

“That is what is important. I don’t care about that.

“I am not really fussed what people say about me or this team or the coaching staff.

“It doesn’t matter. I come to work every day. It is not something that affects me and the morale has been great within the dressing-room, so it’s not a concern.”

Numbers game

American sportsmen are used to seeing their performances analysed by statistics and while number-crunching is not always an exact science, Howard’s figures for last season didn’t make for pretty reading.

Squawka uses a wide range of factors to calculate its figures and during the 2012/13 season it ranked Howard as the fifth best Premier League goalkeeper with a performance score of 837.

During the 2013/14 campaign when the Blues enjoyed a club record Premier League points haul, Howard moved up to second in the rankings with 738 but last season he plummeted to 28th out of the 30 goalkeepers who played in the top flight with a score of just nine.

Such numbers aren’t immediately tangible though so a closer examination of hard truths is probably in order.

It’s a team effort of course but Howard’s Premier League clean sheets fell from 15 in 37 games in 2013/14 to seven in 32 in 2014/15.

The number of saves Howard was making per game fell from 2.57 in 2013/14 to 1.88 in 2014/15 while his saves per goal halved from 2.88 to 1.43.

However you choose to look at the issue, more of those shots were going in.

Sands of time

It’s not just Howard’s shot-stopping ability that has come under fire but his positioning and decision-making, too, but Neville Southall, who played in goal for Everton until he was 39, believes that older keepers often receive unfair criticism.

Southall, who remains a big fan of Howard, said: “If you’re getting on a bit then they say you’re too slow and you’re sliding down the other side of the mountain.

“You make a mistake because you make a mistake, it’s nothing to do with your age.

“It’s not because you’re older otherwise every old person would be going around making mistakes every five minutes.”

Howard has played 389 games for Everton and could potentially displace Dixie Dean (433) from the club’s all-time top 10 in the appearance chart next season. He also still has another three years to run on his contract at Goodison Park taking him up to the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia where he is tipped to hang up his gloves.

If he’s to retain his number one spot with the Blues until then he’ll have to see off a challenge from Joel Robles for starters with the 25-year-old recovering from some early jitters to produce a string of more commanding displays last season.

Whether the Spaniard is ever able to seriously rival the American remains to be seen, but while there have been lapses by his own stellar standards, ultra-fit athlete Howard has not become a bad player overnight and everyone at Everton will be hoping he can return to the peak of his powers in the months ahead.