When talking about the best goalkeepers in the world it’s hard to really carve out a list of the top goal stoppers because at least in my eyes there are different styles of goalkeeping. As I’ve heard one of my coaches say I’ve seen multiple styles work in the pro game. Therefore you really can’t count out any type of goalkeeper just because they happen to have an unorthodox way to play. Having said this, I do feel that in the past decade or so a lot of the premier league goalkeepers are cut from the same cloth. A premier league goalkeeper has to be tall, strong, and have a cannon of a leg. Certainly all of the keepers that we are going to be talking about in this article have all of these features.
One of the things that makes it really hard to be able to crown a goalkeeper as the best of the Premier League is consistency. Some of the big names have consistently come up short in some of the biggest games. If you’re a Man United fan or a follower of the spanish national team you know who we are talking about here! Some of the top goalkeepers in the Premier League have not found a way to be able to stay on the field. That’s one of the more heartbreaking situations for all of the fans. We always want to see the top goalkeepers take the field week in and week out.
I’m going to be looking at 5 goalkeepers from some of the top clubs in the premier league. I just have to say outright there is no one goalkeeper that I could say is head and shoulder above the rest. As you probably could say with the Bundesliga where even at his age everyone still is way below the level that Manuel Neuer brings to the table. There is no club bias on the list since, I actually don’t have a favorite Premier League team. With all of this said let’s get going.
Édouard Mendy: A Late Career Surge
In doing the research for this article I was really surprised to find out that Édouard Mendy is 29! It was a fact that was actually alluding me before creating this article and I really thought that he was going to be able to grow into a much better keeper. At 29 he still can have some very solid years at Chelsea, but I don’t feel that he’s going to be able to turn into a world class player. Particularly at the level of Petr Cech who is without a doubt the best goalkeeper to dawn the blues jersey.
As far as stats go though, they do play very much in favor of Mendy. He has started 21 games and posted 11 clean sheets. We can’t say that he hasn’t brought stability to the position at Chelsea. Something that Kepa was really never able to grasp. Right now Mendy is the clear favorite of current manager Thomas Tuchel. The thing is Mendy’s continuity is tied to Tuchel’s potential success. I do have to say that at this point it does look like Tuchel could be the man to turn Chelsea around. Over the years though the ownership group led by Roman Abramovich has not proven to be all that patient. Also, the squad isn’t the strongest in the Premier League if things go south and Abramovich remembers the amount of money that he paid for Kepa, it could spell disaster for Mendy.
In his still brief stint in the Premier League though Mendy has proven that he belongs. At his height he is the prototypical Premier League keeper. There are two things that worry me about him though, he is not great with the ball in his feet and his hands are not my favorite at all. Like a lot of goalkeepers on the list size really helps him make up for some of the technical flaws. Again at 29 I don’t see a super star in the making. He is a solid player though that can get the job done.
David De Gea : Old Reliable? Still Best Goalkeeper Premier League Material?
For years on end David De Gea was the glue or perhaps the safety net that was keeping Manchester United from falling to the irrelevant middle of the table. It can be said that in many of those seasons the play of the team on the field in the Moyes, Van Gal, and Mourinho eras deserved to finish middle of the pack at best. The thing David De Gea is that he has always been one of those miracle makers in goal. One of his top career saves and a picture that many people have imprinted in their minds is of him diving feet first into the bottom corner to stop a header.
Just as you can count on De Gea to pull a rabbit out of the hat in some of the most unexpected moments sadly, he’s also been known to be inconsistent in some of the most pressure riddled moments of his career. If we are being fair it would seem like most of these mishaps have fallen on him with the Spanish national team. The World Cup game where he gave up 3 goals to Cristiano Ronaldo is still one that people remember. For me those types of issues have been a constant his whole career. Can he pull a rabbit out of a hat and save the day? Of course he can, but then he can turn around and have a slow, low running shot go right through his hands.
He has guarded the goal for Man United 24 times at the time of writing and he has boasted 9 clean sheets in route to only 12 wins for Man United. Since, I talked about Mendy being 29, I do have to say De Gea is only 30 and it seems that he’s been around forever. With the current goalkeeper market being the way that it is I can’t see the red devils making a move in goal any time soon!
Ederson : Guardiola’s Solution To The Goalkeeper Dilema
For all of the success and brilliance that Pep Guardiola has had as a coach you really can’t say that he has been an expert in picking goalkeepers. It’s well known that Guardiola prioritizes having a goalkeeper that can play with his feet. That serves Ederson quite well. He may not be the most nimble goalkeeper with the ball in the turf, but he does have a cannon for a leg. That can seem to be counter intuitive on a team with a coach that always wants to prioritize a short passing game. That cannon though has gotten Man City out of a lot of trouble in the past couple of seasons.
Other than the big leg I wouldn’t venture to say that there are many glaring features from Ederson’s game that many people would want to write home about. Yet, what I think that the Brizalian has been able to prove to Pep is that he is constantly decent. In many cases he doesn’t put himself or his team in a lot of trouble. Which was something that we saw Claudio Bravo do constantly. The Willy Caballero experiment failed in many ways as well. In Ederson, Guardiola found a keeper that is very competent between the sticks. He also boasts a very decent high ball game. Something that is certainly a must to be labeled one of the best Premier League Goalkeepers.
At the time of writing Ederson has played 25 games this season with the Citizens and he features 15 clean sheets in the process. That’s more than what both De Gea and Mendy can muster. While he has less saves this year than any of those two he is a keeper that plays to his strengths. There is a bit more cohesion in his game with his back line. With Mendy for example you still see some signs of that lack of playing time together. If you need someone decent and available the Brazilian is your man.
Alisson : The Best Ability is Availability, Best Goalkeeper Premier League On Best Day
If Alisson would be able to find a way to stay on the pitch he may well be the best goalkeeper Premier League has to offer. At this point in time the brazilian is in the news more often because of the time that he is spending in the training room and not the time that he is spending on the pitch. There’s actually an argument to be made that the drop in level of play from Liverpool from a couple of seasons ago when they one the Champions League and even last year that they won the Premier League is precisely the presence of Adrian in goal and not Alisson.
Alisson is very much a prototype Premier League goalkeeper boasting a 191 cm height (6.2ft). His game between the sticks, particularly his one on one game is what really stands out from him. At the same time I would be very comfortable saying that he has some of the softest hands in the Premier League. He is not quite Ederson with the leg power, but his goal kick and punt power is very much top level. He is very much like Ederson in that you don’t see a lot of the major blenders that we could say that De Gea has. Over the years he has had one or two high profile issues, but I don’t feel that the mistakes happen on such a consistent basis to be able to crucify him for those.
If you look at the numbers he is certainly at the bottom when compared to pretty much all of the other members on the list. Out of 21 appearances he has only been able to muster 5 clean sheets. He has conceded 24 goals out of those 21 outings. According to the stats there are 3 goals that the Premier League directly attributes to him. Certainly, the numbers are very cold this season for Alisson. He is on the list a little bit more for what everyone has seen that he can be. At 28 he is not an old goalkeeper by any stretch of the imagination. If the injuries keep piling up though it’s going to be tough to be able to keep him on this list for next year. Hopefully he can get healthy and back to his top form quickly.
Kasper Schmeichel : Small Team Biased
When Leicester City won the Premier League title a couple of years back everyone was in love with Kasper Schmeichel. It was the feel good story of one of the few players that was essentially able to live up to the high expectations that come with being the son of one of the game’s greats. For whatever reason Schmeichel didn’t follow in the footsteps of most of his Leicester teammates from that year and pursue a move to one of the top flight clubs of the English game. Since the foxes have been nowhere near championship contention in the last couple of years it seems that Schmeichel’s popularity has dwindled a bit.
It’s one thing to be popular though and it’s another to be a complete stud in goal. Some of the results that Leicester City have been raking up particularly in the last couple of years against top flight don’t do Kasper any favors. Yet, he has remained one of the most consistent players on the squad. There are very few players in the game that have his instincts and hands between the sticks. He has compiled a whopping 67 saves in 26 appearances this year. Boasting 9 clean sheets with certainly the weakest team out of all of the members of this list.
Are their holes in Schmeichel’s game? The stats do show that he is a goalkeeper that likes to play more inside of his box. He only has 4 sweeper clearances. This usually means that we are talking about a goalkeeper that doesn’t love to venture outside of the box. Of course, Allison and Ederson boast much better feet, yet I do feel that Kasper is the type of goalkeeper that a team like Leicester needs. He has the spectacular save ability that De Gea brings to the table, but with less blunders. At least in the last couple of years that has proven to be the case in my opinion.
Who Is The Best Goalkeeper Premier League Has To Offer?
It was a tough choice, and I did spend quite a bit of time analyzing the stats and their game film. One of the things that jumped out to me that leads me to say that the best goalkeeper in Premier League for the time being is Kasper Schmeichel, is the respect that strikers have for him when he is between the sticks. This is something that his dad had a great deal of. He was one of those goalkeepers that could get in the head of the striker and make them think twice about where they were going to put the ball. A lot of times the second of hesitation is what allows a good goalkeeper to be able to make the save. He is not the Great Dane, Peter Schmeichel let’s not get it twisted. Currently he is the most consistent every time out.
I’m sure that there are some keepers that I kept off the list that some people would put a vote in for. Hugo Lloris, Bernd Leno, some very pro English players could be mad that Jordan Pickford is on the list. Also there’s an argument to be made that if Schmeichel is so good why doesn’t his team win more. That’s a decent argument, but if you watch the games they could win a lot less. The 9 clean sheets with that roster to this point in the season for me really tell a story. I’m not going to sit here and say that Leicester are third with 26 games in the books because of Schmeichel. He’s certainly a part of that success. Particularly with the ok roster that they feature.
I found it very interesting that some of the keepers in the Premier League seem like they’ve been around for a long time. Particularly, De Gea, even Schmeichel, Ederson has been around for a while, but he’s only a bit recently become the regular #1. The thing is none of them are essentially past their prime. It’s actually the opposite; those late 20’s early 30’s are widely considered the prime years for a goalkeeper. It seems that other Tottenham none of the top clubs in the league are going to be looking for a change in goal in the upcoming years. This means that we could be seeing the same faces that we see on this year’s list for years and years to come. Not exactly great news for the up and coming goalkeepers that want to make their way to a top flight team.
