Sometimes opposition goalkeepers make several great saves in a match but you don’t care because your team won anyway. Far more memorable are the occasions when your heroes are thwarted time and again, leading to points slipping away.
Liverpool are obviously no strangers to this. Back in 2017, Vito Mannone made 13 saves for Sunderland in a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light, and four years earlier Alex McCarthy kept out 11 goal-bound shots as the Reds drew 0-0 with Reading.
These days we have far more advanced analysis techniques than merely counting the number of efforts on target. Post-shot expected goal models account for other factors, such as the power and placement of the shot, to quantify a goalkeeper’s performance. By this measure, Jordan Pickford recorded one of the best figures by any stopper against Liverpool in the last five years when the recent Merseyside derby ended goalless.
