The writer of the 'Ones to Watch' section In the MatchDay program of Nottingham Forest, Andre Onana has not spared blushing.
“Onana is capable of both the sublime and the ridiculous between the posts and he can sometimes possess whimsical tendencies,” they wrote about the goalkeeper of Manchester United prior to the victory of Forest in midweek.
A touch for perhaps, maybe, but many United fans would accept deep down that they might have had a point.
Onana's two years at United was littered with errors, as when he accused of giving Ipswich an early goal in February and to give Brighton a third in the defeat against the seagulls when he spilled a cross on the path of Georginio Rutter.
His series of mistakes last season contributed that United collapsed in the group stage of the Champions League.
However, the Cameroon International is by no means the only Premier League goalkeeper who is being examined – just look at the man who is in the opposition goal on Sunday afternoon.
Ederson broke the form of what was expected from a Premier League goalkeeper after Pep Guardiola brought him to Manchester City and the Sweeper Keeper era started.
Yet he made two huge mistakes in the defeat against Real Madrid in the Champions League, Callum Hudson-Odoi beat him in his nearby post in the defeat of City against Nottingham Forest.
Two of the most expensive keepers in two of the largest clubs in the world make major mistakes. Will keepers get worse?
Errors in the turnout
What is clear is that keepers make more expensive mistakes. Before this weekend, Statistics Opta registered that goalkeepers had made 81 errors this season that led their opponents to have a shot – already 20 more than the average for the previous four full campaigns. Thirty -seven of those led to a goal, one more than the entire last season.
Targetmen are nowadays unrecognizable for goalkeepers from the past. Their task is no longer just to prevent the ball from going into the net. They are now playmakers, often an important part of the accrued game that is just as important as stopping photos. The Guardiolaification of modern football has changed everything.
Goalkeepers have more accents than 10 or 20 years ago and the passes they play are much, much shorter.
In the 2003-04 season, only one in 10 of their passes were played briefly. This season it is more than half. The average length of a Premier League target kick in 2013-14 was more than 60 meters, beyond the half line. This season it is 37 Yards, within the defensive third. More than 80 percent of Tottenham and Chelsea do not leave their own punishment.
The closer they have the ball to their own goal, the more dangerous it is when things go wrong, and as more and more teams have improved in printing … that forces errors.
Is shot-stop killing?
But they are worse in doing what used to be their primary task – making saves and keeping it out of the net.
“The size and athletics of keepers to make Saves is absolutely larger than in yesteryear,” a director of the performance told Mail Sport in a top premier competition club. 'It is very difficult to beat them remotely.
“Even when shots are on goal, keepers are much more agile, more powerful and explosive than in previous seasons.”
In the past 20 years, however, the percentage of shots that Premier League keepers has saved, however, has fallen steadily, albeit softly. Keepers then stored three on every four shots, now it is about two in three.
Saving percentage in itself can be a misleading stat because it treats all shots equally – whether they are straight to the goalkeeper or in the upper corner, from close by or 40 meters away.
And nowadays they are rarely from 40 meters away. The rise of football analyzes and an obsession with terms such as expected goals (XG) means that teams know that there is more chance to score if they work the ball in a dangerous area than taking a long-distance spot shot.
Twenty years ago, only half of all Premier League shots were made in the box. Now it is more than two -thirds.
Teams are getting closer to the goal and the accuracy of strikers is increasing. It is more difficult to save shots than before.
It is more learning to look at what a statistics called expected goals on Target (XGOT), which measures the power and placement of a shot to assess how likely it is to find the net and therefore how many goals a keeper has prevented or sliding.
If we follow those figures, keepers have … been terrible. In the past four seasons they have let in 226 more goals than they would have expected based on the shots on goal they are dealing with. In the 2021-22 season, where keepers have sent nearly 80 more goals than they should have 'had', only four clubs had positive figures.
This current season is the only record (since 2017-18) where keepers have prevented more than expected.
Despite all his mistakes, Onana has prevented more than he has endured. During his two seasons in the Premier League, he is with more than four goals in the Green – the same as Edererson all over his city career. Even then, however, it cannot compare with the 12.5 that his predecessor David de Gea has prevented in the 2017-18 campaign alone.
Such advanced figures do not extend far enough to compare the current harvest of stoppers with the big names of the past such as Peter Schmeichel and Petr Cech. No matter how big they were, nostalgia she often becomes infallible.
We forget that Schmeichel in 1993 remembers two goals for the opening of two goals for Manchester City at Niall Quinn and his last salvation and the comeback from United. We obscure the mistakes of Cech against Bolton and ship three in eight minutes, in 2009 to praise his overall Chelsea Heroics. Cech struggled with the ball on his feet, ask every Arsenal fan that.
We will never know how the will of Gordon Banks or Peter Shilton would do it in the modern game. Would you return Alisson to save Pele's header? Can banks beat the press with a Pinpoint Pass to midfield?
It will be those famous names that will be spoken as the best forever, but the only thing we really know is that the art of keepers, in advance and adversity, is rated for another canvas than ever before.
Comments