Premier League goalkeepers – ‘Proof’ Nick Pope is up there with very best


 
 
 
 
 
 

An interesting new report on Premier League goalkeepers.

Who have been the very good, the good, the not so good?

What is the best way to measure Premier League goalkeepers when it comes to evaluating their performance?

This new report from The Other 14 addresses that, the table below showing the Premier League goalkeepers with the best and worst save percentages:

As you can see, Nick Pope having saved 73.6% of shots he has faced in the Premier League this season.

Only Alisson at Liverpool can beat that, having saved 75.7% of the efforts on goal he has faced.

As always, I find it incredible that a minority of Newcastle United fans actually wanted Nick Pope dropped, purely because he isn’t as good as some other Premier League goalkeepers when it comes to playing out with his feet.

The reality is that Nick Pope is one of the very best at doing that quite important thing of keeping the ball out of the net. As was shown for sure last season when only Man City matched Newcastle United in terms of how few goals were conceded.

This isn’t an exercise meant to knock Martin Dubravka but I think the evidence is overwhelming, both with stats and what we have seen with our own eyes. Dubravka is a decent Premier League keeper, Nick Pope is a top notch one.

In his 14 Premier League starts this season, Nick Pope let in 14 goals.

In his 10 PL starts so far this season, Martin Dubravka has conceded 25.

In his most recent 10 PL starts, Pope leaked only seven goals and kept six clean sheets out of those ten.

Pope’s last 10 Premier League games saw Newcastle win 7, draw 2 and lose 1.

Dubravka this season in the Premier League, it is one clean sheet (v 10 man Fulham) and win 3 draw 1 lose 6.

Now nobody would claim that those recent form stats / results would be completely reversed if Nick Pope had been in goal instead.

However… I do think fair to say that Newcastle would have conceded less goals and picked up more points with Nick Pope in nets.

Exactly how much better the results would have been, will always be an unknown.

As well as his Premier League form, Nick Pope kept a clean sheet in the Man City League Cup match, a clean sheet at the San Siro against AC Milan, whilst cheated out of another one in Paris when PSG got that shocking late penalty decision.