Alisson, De Gea, Ramsdale: Premier League goalkeepers ranked by goals prevented in 2021/22

Who was the best Premier League goalkeeper of the 2021/22 season?

In a year where Jose Sa and Aaron Ramsdale ranked amongst the season’s best signings and Alisson Becker returned to his world-beating best, picking the number one number one is no easy task.

And while you might well have your own opinion on the matter, the closest we can come to making such a subjective question an objective one is by referring to the full set of 2021/22 statistics.

In fact, to try and answer who the standout Premier League ‘keeper of 2021/22 has been, we’ve turned to the experts over at FBref and their remarkable collection of data on this very topic.

And although there are a thousand ways in which you can judge a goalkeeper’s quality, their job ultimately comes down to, well, preventing goals and therefore the art of shot-stopping.

Yes, we could look at total saves or goals conceded, but the fairest way to judge the league’s goalkeepers regardless of the quality of the team they play for is the so-called ‘goals prevented’ metric.

This new kid on the block in the world of stats is calculated by comparing the difference between a goalkeeper’s goals conceded and the post-shot expected goals that they faced based on the xG model.

In other words, if a goalkeeper was statistically meant to have conceded 50 goals based on the quality of the shots they faced, but only conceded 48, then the theory goes that they prevented two goals.

The only caveats are that own goals are not included, but penalties are indeed factored in.

It’s not a perfect system and the xG doubters amongst you might be rolling your eyes, but it’s arguably the closest data has ever come to ranking the shot-stopping ability of goalkeepers.

So, without further ado, be sure to