The position of goalkeeper is such a high-pressure one within a team. Usually, a mistake will lead to a goal and so having a quality keeper as your last line of defence is vital for teams at either end of the table.
Here, I take a look at how the stoppers in League One stack up against each other using the five metrics from FotMob. (These statistics were taken before kick-off in Easter Monday’s fixtures)
Clean Sheets – minimum 35 league matches.
James Trafford (Bolton Wanderers) and Christian Walton (Ipswich Town) lead the way on 19 clean sheets each this season. The top 5 in the division is completed by Joe Wildsmith at Derby County, Luke Southwood of Cheltenham Town and Max Stryjek at Wycombe Wanderers with 16, 15 and 15 respectively.
Clean sheets are perhaps an obvious starting point for a goalkeeper but don’t tell the whole story, of course. For example, you would perhaps expect a keeper at one of the better-performing sides to keep clean sheets due to their team’s dominance.
Take Southwood as an example from the five: he has played 40 matches and kept 15 clean sheets but this means he has conceded over 2 per match in the other 25 appearances and his xGOT (effectively expected goals conceded) is almost -4 meaning he has conceded more than he should have.
Save Percentage – minimum 35 league matches.
James Trafford again performs well in this statistic, saving over 77% of shots faced and only being bettered by Max Stryjek of Wycombe Wanderers who has a 78% save rate. Lincoln City’s Carl Rushworth comes next with a 75.6% save percentage and is followed by Fleetwood Town goalie Jay Lynch (73.6%) and Morecambe’s Connor Ripley (71.8%).
As with any of the statistics, arguments can be made for and against the value of this statistic as there are so many variables. The interesting member of the top five is Morecambe’s Ripley, who has conceded 69 goals this season but has still saved over 70% of the shots he has faced. This highlights the issues the Shrimps have had this season, finding themselves second bottom and five points adrift of safety.
https://twitter.com/wwfcofficial/status/1618142650280083458
Saves Per 90 Minutes – minimum 35 league matches.
Connor Ripley again performs well here despite his team’s struggles, making over 4 saves per 90 minutes and a total of 176 saves this season. Max Stryjek again sits in the top two best-performing keepers, making 3.4 saves per 90 and a total of 123 stops this season. Fleetwood’s Lynch, Lincoln’s Carl Rushworth and MK Dons’ keeper Jamie Cumming make up the top five with 3, 2.9 and 2.8 saves per 90 respectively.
Ripley’s 4.3 saves per 90 minutes on top of the 69 goals he has conceded really do emphasise the struggles they have had defensively, and the stats suggest that but for Ripley it could have been a lot worse.
Goals Prevented – minimum 35 league matches.
Ripley and Stryjek are the real standout performers in this metric (shout out to Plymouth Argyle’s Michael Cooper who has prevented nearly 8 goals but hasn’t appeared in enough matches) with them both preventing over 7 goals against the xGOT. Their closest competitor is Christian Walton at Ipswich with 4.1 and he is followed by James Trafford and Jay Lynch who both sit on 3.3.
This statistic works similarly to xG, the expected goals calculation and shows how many the goalkeeper has conceded against how many they would have been expected to concede. The fact that Ripley and Stryjek are once again heading these statistics suggests that they are facing a lot of shots but that individually they are excelling and making saves that they shouldn’t be making.
Goals Conceded Per 90 Minutes – minimum 35 league matches.
Unsurprisingly, Connor Ripley does not appear in the top five of this statistic and we have a top two of those we may expect as they are playing for teams at the right end of the table. Walton and Trafford sit joint top as they concede 0.8 goals per 90 minutes and they are joined by Carl Rushworth, Stryjek (of course!) and Joe Wildsmith who have conceded 0.8, 0.8 and 1 respectively.
Carl Rushworth of Lincoln City sits alongside the high-performing Stryjek as part of a City side who have only conceded 41 goals all season, less than league leaders Plymouth and Derby’s Joe Wildsmith is proving solid, conceding just once a game on average.
Writer’s View
You can, of course, make statistics say what you want, and they don’t always provide the full picture. A goalkeeper can be judged in so many ways, with the modern keepers having their distribution scrutinised more and more and letting in goals isn’t necessarily their fault as much as keeping clean sheets isn’t always down to their brilliance.
Fans who watch players, and in particular goalkeepers, I believe get a feel for the player and they make their own mind up as to how good they are – coaches and scouts may be completely different. I have watched Carl Rushworth a lot this season and without looking at statistics I will vouch for him being an excellent goalkeeper who can do the traditional things you would look for in a keeper – stop shots and come for crosses. He also distributes quite well but also has the trust of fans – when a difficult, bouncing shot is fired in you feel confident he will handle it well and that isn’t shown in these statistics.
From the above stats, you would be making a case for Max Stryjek being the top-performing keeper in the division as he is high in all of the categories. However, what they don’t tell you is how many shots he has faced compared to, for example, James Trafford and this could skew the data either way.
There are certainly some very good goalkeepers at this level, with Trafford and Rushworth recently being in the England Under 21s squad and they will be looking to kick on in their careers when they return to their parent clubs.
