As this season enters its climax, question remarks still remain over who is Swansea City's chief shot-stopper.
The position was lock downed by former keeper Lukasz Fabianski in the previous four campaigns, however relegation last season unsurprisingly saw the big Pole exit for West Ham in the summer.
Swans manager Graham Potter has chopped and changed between Erwin Mulder and Kristoffer Nordfeldt since the start of the campaign, with Mulder enjoying the majority of Championship appearances with 25 in comparison to Nordfeldt’s nine so far.
The Swede started off as No.1 but an injury early on gave Mulder his chance. He seemed to have made the spot his own but his form has dipped in recent weeks.
Now, Mulder has seemingly lost his place again, with Nordfeldt starting Swansea’s last two matches.
After nine months in charge, Potter still seems to be deciding who his best goalkeeper is.
Addressing the Nordfeldt's display against Sheffield Wednesday and on his decision to choose the Swede over Mulder, Potter said: "I thought he did well against Brentford and he's got his qualities that we thought he could use in the game.
"He was fine during the game, obviously when you concede three it's disappointing but I thought his overall performance was one of courage and character."
But who is really Swansea’s best man in between the sticks? Who will start against Bolton? Potter likes to keep us guessing, but let's drill down to the stats for a moment.
Initially looking at Expected Goals Conceded (xGC) — which is a metric that assess 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 Mulder has an xGC total of 33.33 for this season.
This would suggest he should have conceded around 33 goals this campaign. However, he has in fact conceded just 31 goals, demonstrating he has outperformed his xGC total to date, meaning he is allowing fewer goals past him than would be expected.
Meanwhile for Nordfeldt, he had an xGC total of 11.69 for his nine league appearances and notably in that time, he conceded 11 goals. This suggests he’s performing rather unremarkably, and around the level expected given the shots he has faced this campaign.
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In terms of clean sheets, Mulder has shut the opposition out in 28% of his league fixtures so far, which betters Nordfeldt’s total of 18%. Mulder can also boast a better save percentage than his rival, saving 72.81% of shots on his goal compared to Nordfeldt’s 65.63%.
Mulder’s impressive save percentage actually ranks him inside the top six keepers in the Championship who have played nine of more league games this season, and he has also proven himself as the more commanding keeper of the two, opting to leave his line more. When facing a cross into the box, he averages 1.23 exits per 90 minutes in comparison to Nordfeldt’s average of 1.14.
That dominance translates in terms of his success aerial duels too. Impressively, he has won 100% of all his aerial duels this season; only two other Championship keepers have replicated this feat. While Nordfeldt can pose a fairly impressive success rate of 83.33% in his aerial duels, it is once again another department Mulder dominates.
Nordfeldt can redeem himself slightly in terms of his distribution, averaging more passes per 90 minutes at 27.73, with a better completion rate in those passes at 90.57%. But those numbers hold dominance over Mulder, with the Dutchman himself averaging 25.3 passes per 90 minutes with a success rate of 88.92%.
Overall, it’s clear Mulder offers much more for Swansea in the key goalkeeping departments. Nordfeldt is for sure a competent keeper, but Potter would be wiser to cement Mulder as his number one for the remainder of this season.
