Alisson's Starting to Flatten
Mohamed Salah's departure will feel like the end of an era. Giorgi Mamardashvili may supersede Alisson Becker and usher him towards the exit door soon too.
Back in the early days of amateur football analysis, it was hard to learn much about goalkeepers as the data was very basic. The demise of FBRef’s offering has somewhat returned us back to the dark days of the early 2010s. Have you seen that new show Luther, it’s silly but great.
The only way to numerically assess goalkeepers at that time was save percentage. It’s far from ideal as it takes no account of the quality of the chance that the shot stopper faced. Simon Mignolet’s save percentage looked great at Sunderland because he was behind a low block that encouraged long range efforts. In the hurricane of Brendan Rodgers’ Reds, the Belgian was far less impressive.
As limited as the metric is, Alisson Becker has seen his figure dip to a career low in the Premier League this season. Only 12 goalkeepers with at least 25 matches played in the big five leagues have a worse figure. That’s far from ideal, how ever much of the blame lies truly at his door.
Mohamed Salah looks his age these days, so the same may be true for his fellow 33-year-old between the sticks. The noisy nature of save percentage means we shouldn’t be too hasty with condemning Alisson to an Anfield exit too soon though.
Former Crystal Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita was the worst performing 33-year-old for save percentage in the last decade in 2020/21, only to improve by 10 per cent the following season. His efforts in 2022/23 are the best by a shot stopper who was 35 years old at the start of any of the last 10 campaigns. Form fluctuates, both for goalkeepers and the teams they represent.
Another old school metric to assess goalkeepers is their record versus Opta-defined big chances (with penalties excluded). Becker’s save percentage for this has floated a shade above league average for the past two seasons when it was previously his superpower. Not that anybody in the Premier League with a decent sample since 2018/19 has a better success rate, even allowing for the recent cooling Alisson has experienced. That’s not a skill to shed from your backline too hastily.
With his pass accuracy at it’s lowest since his season with Roma and injuries taking a toll, it’s fair to ask if this summer will be the right time to handover the number one shirt to Giorgi Mamardashvili. While the detailed goalkeeper data is no longer neatly compiled on FBRef, we can obtain it elsewhere to start making a fairer comparison between Alisson, his peers and the Georgian waiting in the wings.
