Button: Friedel’s help aided my career

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Brentford’s David Button has hailed the impact of veteran Tottenham goalkeeper Brad Friedel on his career.

Button was with Spurs from the age of nine until he left the club to join Charlton Athletic in 2012.

The 24-year-old moved to Brentford during the summer and believes working with an array of top-class keepers during his time at White Hart Lane has given him the best possible grounding.

“Brad Friedel went out of his way to really help the young lads, especially me,” Button told West London Sport.

“He’s a great guy and cares about helping young keepers. He actually helped me get my first Championship loan at Doncaster which was something he didn’t have to do, but he did.

“I really enjoyed working with him. In terms of talking and support he’s got so much experience, you can’t help but learn off him and there is no nicer guy. He can’t do enough for you.

“I’ve had the occasional text off him since I left Spurs, which is nice.

“When I got in the team at Charlton last year he got in touch with me and then again to wish me all the best when I moved to Brentford.”

Button made only two appearances for Tottenham, with internationals such as Friedel, Heurelho Gomes, Carlo Cudicini and Paul Robinson always ahead of him.

But the Stevenage-born stopper still feels he learned from each of them and maintains Gomes, who was exiled from the Spurs first team after a series of high-profile errors, is the best goalkeeper he has ever seen.

Button explained: “There were many goalkeepers I’ve learned a lot from too, like Robinson, Gomes and Cudicini.

“They’ve all got a lot of different attributes so to be able to watch them in training and learn from them was vital experience.

“Gomes is probably the best goalkeeper I’ve ever seen. In training some of the saves he made were incredible.

“He didn’t start playing in goal until he was 17 which is why he might not have had the same technical background as other goalkeepers.”

“The way he handled all the stick he got was great and another thing for me to learn from.”

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