David de Gea and Europe's best goalkeepers this season
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Version 0 of 1. Manchester United should do away with their player of the month award. David de Gea won the prize in October and November, but after his matchwinning performances against Stoke City, Southampton and Liverpool, the club should skip the formality of giving him the December award and just make him their player of the season. United’s run of six consecutive victories has coincided with Michael Carrick’s return to the first team, but De Gea has been their best player by far this season. Rating goalkeepers is a tricky business as the keepers who make the most saves also tend to concede the most goals. That trend is true of the Premier League this season. Robert Green of QPR (56), Tom Heaton of Burnley (52) and Brad Guzan of Aston Villa (52) have stopped the most shots, but they have also spent a considerable portion of their time picking balls out of their nets. De Gea, however, bucks that trend. He has made 47 saves this season, considerably more than Asmir Begovic (26), Tim Howard (30) and Julian Speroni (38), other ever-present goalkeepers whose clubs are struggling in the bottom half of the table. De Gea is making a lot of saves for a team that is winning a lot of matches, but he is not the only anomaly among the Premier League’s goalkeepers. The West Ham keeper, Adrián, is having an equally efficient season. He has made even more saves (49) than De Gea, while only conceding 19 goals. Adrián may not leap into saves with De Gea’s graceful, gazelle-like spring, but if you are looking to bolster your fantasy team’s shaky backline over the January transfer window, he is your man. De Gea’s style, statistics and awards are admirable, but he has some way to go before he can match the peerless Manuel Neuer. We all know that Neuer has won the World Cup, picked up a nomination for the Ballon d’Or and recast himself as a 21st-century Franz Beckenbauer, but his statistics are frighteningly impressive. Neuer has saved 91.2% of the shots he has faced this season. If we amend that statistic to include only shots taken inside the 18-yeard box, it increases to a preposterous 91.3%. That figure is more than 10% better than any other goalkeeper in Europe’s top five leagues has managed this season. Mattia Perin of Genoa (80.4%), Yann Sommer of Borussia Mönchengladbach (78.1%) and Diego Benaglio of Wolfsburg (75%) are Neuer’s closest challengers when it comes to saving close-range shots, with De Gea a little further back on 71.7%. De Gea may be the best goalkeeper in the Premier League, and he may well earn Manchester United’s player of the month award for the rest of the decade, but Neuer is, indisputably, the best goalkeeper in Europe. |