Who are the hardest to beat goalkeepers in the league? Using statistical player analysis BetVictor has made a ranking of Premier League goalkeepers based on their shot-stopping performance so far this season. The ranking algorithm considers post shot expected goals (PsxG) minus goals against (GA), or more simply put; how many goals more or goals less has a goalkeeper conceded than expected. In addition to other key shot-stopping statistics such as save percentage to find out how difficult a goalkeeper has been to score against.
Premier League Shot Stopping:
- Wolves Jose Sa is the hardest to beat goalkeeper in the league. He has conceded 9.7 goals less than expected, the most of any player, and boasts the best save percentage with 83.2%.
- Brentford, Brighton and Burnley fans can take confidence from their goalkeepers shot stopping ability with Raya, Sánchez, and Pope all ranking in the top half of the table.
- Manchester United’s David de Gea ranked second having conceded 7 goals less than expected. However, his PSxG of 49 is the second highest after Leeds United’s Illan Meslier indicating a lack of protection in front of him. So, whilst De Gea might be tough to beat Manchester United’s defence may not be.
- On the other side of Manchester Ederson has ranked in 9th place conceding -1.4 more goals than expected. His PSxG (18.6) is the lowest in the league indicating that unlike de Gea he is benefiting from an excellent defence in front of him – but is in fact slightly underperforming at stopping the shots he does face.
- Emiliano Martinez was a standout performer for Aston Villa last season, his PSxG-GA in the 2020/21 season was 6.4 which would have been the third highest rate this season. However, this season it is -8.6, the worst rate in the league of players analysed and a considerable drop off in form.
Which Premier League goalkeeper is the hardest to score against in 2022?
The table above looks at some of the key shot-stopping statistics in addition to each player’s rank. Post shot expected goals look at the likelihood of a goalkeeper saving a shot once it is known that shot is on target, to estimate how many goals a keeper is expected to concede. Post shot expected goals minus goals against (PSxG-GA) therefore shows how much a player is overperforming or underperforming this season relative to their expected stats. This data was combined with save percentage to assign an average Z-score to each player with players then being ranked from best to worst.
Methodology
- Performance data was collected from the 2021/22 Premier League season
- Goalkeepers were assessed across several key statistics and given a standardized score per statistic with an average standardized score then calculated for each player.
- The ranking algorithm factors in game time using per 90-minute performance data to ensure that findings are proportionate to playtime.
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