With less than a quarter of the Premier League season remaining, so many questions remain unanswered.
The Premier League title race looks set to go down to the wire, as does the race for the top four - and indeed the battle to avoid the drop.
Furthermore there is also a race to the Premier League’s Golden Boot and the Golden Glove.
In terms of the latter, the current top three is led by Liverpool’s Alisson Becker with 17 clean sheets, followed by Manchester City’s Ederson on 14 and Kepa Arrizabalaga on 11.
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Irrespective of who secures the award come May, questions will still remain over who is the Premier League’s chief shot-stopper.
The position has been locked down for a number of seasons by Manchester United’s formidable keeper David De Gea, however there has been an enormous investment on keepers by the Premier League’s top sides in recent seasons.
City parted with £35m to bring in Ederson last season as Pep Guardiola sourced a keeper capable of implementing his ball playing style, meanwhile Liverpool splashed out over £60m in their bid to secure an elite shot stopper between the sticks.
Thibaut Courtois departure in the summer saw Chelsea break the record set by Liverpool several weeks earlier as they paid the highest fee ever paid for a goalkeeper in the sum of £71.6m for Kepa.
The arrivals of Alisson and Kepa this season, along with Ederson in the last, has cast doubt over the validity of De Gea’s Premier League top spot.
But who has really proven themselves the best man in between the sticks out of those four shot stoppers?
Who concedes more - or less - than they should?
Initially looking at Expected Goals Conceded (xGC) - which is a metric that assesses the likelihood that a shot would lead to a goal based on numerous factors such as shot distance and quality of the assist provided - we can see Alisson has an xGC total of 24.86 for this season.
This would suggest he should have conceded around 25 goals this campaign. However, he has in fact conceded just 18 goals, demonstrating he has outperformed his xGC total by 6.86. In simple terms, he is allowing fewer goals past him than would be expected.
Ederson ranks second in the group, conceding 1.84 goals fewer than he should have given the shots he has faced. This betters De Gea’s total slightly with the Spaniard conceding 1.75 goals fewer than expected.
Meanwhile for Kepa, he had an xGC total of 31.48 in the league this season. However, notably in that time he conceded 33 goals. He is therefore the only keeper on the list to be underperforming against their xGC season total.
Notable other performers in this department are Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris who is bettering his xGC by -7.75 and West Ham’s Lukasz Fabianski who ranks top in the Premier League, outperforming his xGC by -8.89.
Who is the best shot-stopper?
Each side’s relative dominance means they aren’t often called into action, but again Alisson tops the table in terms of the best save percentage of the group with 77.5%.
Notably both Brazilian keepers play behind formidable defences that allow the opposition few shots on goal, with both Liverpool and Manchester City conceding an average of just over two shots per 90 minutes.
Even when they do give up shots, they tend not to be dangerous ones. Opponents on average take shots from 16.81 metres away against City’s goal and 18.83 metres away from Liverpool’s.
De Gea performs well in this department, ranking second behind Alisson with a save percentage with 72.6%. Again Kepa ranks last of the group with a 67.33% save percentage.
Who is the most reliable and commanding?
When it comes to commanding their 18-yard-box, Ederson leads the way in opting to leave his line on a more regular basis. When facing a cross into the box or closing an attacker down, he averages 1.06 exits per 90 minutes which betters the rest of the group.
Some of that authority translates in terms of his success in aerial duels too, posting a 92.31% success rate against the opposition. Both De Gea and Kepa have impressively won 100% of all their aerial duels this season.
This department is one in which Alisson has struggled somewhat. He not only makes the fewest exits per 90 minutes, but he also has the lowest success rate in terms of aerial duels at 80%.
Furthermore, he has made more errors leading to a goal than any of the other keeper in the list. Only Everton’s Jordan Pickford has made more this season in the Premier League, with four.
As a result, he has been directly responsible for 16.7% of Liverpool’s conceded goals this season.
Who is the best in terms of distribution?
With a £71.6m price tag hanging over his head, Kepa’s underlying stats for the campaign are largely underwhelming this season.
However, he can redeem himself slightly in terms of his distribution, averaging 21.65 passes per 90 minutes with an impressive success rate of 90.41% in those passes.
This betters all of the other three keepers, including Man City’s Ederson who has been credited as the first real ‘ball-playing’ keeper to grace the Premier League following his arrival in England last season.
What’s notable is De Gea’s lack of passes per 90 minutes and indeed success rate in those passes. He also exhibits the longest pass average of the four keepers too.
This likely illustrates the Spaniard’s lack of comfort either in possession of the ball or indeed playing out from the back. His bias tends to be to play the ball long and clear any potential danger.
Who is the best?
Judging by the above data, it would seem Liverpool can be immensely proud of their keeper this season - and delighted with their summer purchase.
Whilst there is a glaring smudge on an overall impressive debut season for the Brazilian in the form of his errors leading to goals stats, the fact he can better his rivals in terms of xGC numbers - as well as having the best save percentage - is a testament to his ability.
With seven games remaining, he looks like a shoe-in to secure the Golden Glove award in May. There is no denying the award would be richly deserved, and he may even be able to boast the crown of the league’s new no.1 too.
