It is four years this week since Liverpool broke the world-record transfer fee for a goalkeeper to land Alisson Becker's signature from AS Roma.
Over the course of his time at Anfield, the Brazilian has won a whole host of honours. From the Premier League to the Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup to the FA Cup, he's made a huge difference to Jurgen Klopp's outfit.
Alisson is commonly regarded as one of the best around based on his time at Liverpool. And, based upon inspection of the numbers since his arrival, it is clear to see why he's considered as elite.
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It can be difficult to truly capture the influence of a goalkeeper, but Expected Goals (xG) can be applied in order to gauge some form of understanding. xG offers an insight into the likelihood of an attempt being scored, by considering aspects such as shot location, and it tends to provide an accurate summary of whether a team deserved fewer or more goals based on their shots.
Post-shot xG can be applied to goalkeepers as it specifically focuses on shots that hit the target and takes into account the quality and trajectory of the shot, thus relating to shot-stopping.
Alisson has been expected to ship around 115.6 goals in the Premier League based on the shots on target he's faced since his transfer to Anfield. However, the Reds ' No.1 has actually conceded just 99 times, excluding own goals. That essentially means he's saved shots to an above average standard, overperforming expectation by an impressive 16.6 goals.
In simple terms, having Alisson in goal rather than a typical keeper for the past four years has saved Liverpool from conceding around 16 to 17 goals in the Premier League, as the average performer would have shipped around that amount once presented with the same shots on target to prevent.
Over the same period of time, Manchester City's Ederson has overperformed by 6.6 goals, which is good but not great, and 10 fewer than his Brazil international team-mates. Meanwhile, over the park, Everton's Jordan Pickford has largely performed in line with the standard man between the sticks, underperforming expectation by a marginal amount of 0.1 goals.
In the cases of Ederson and particularly Pickford, the pair of goalkeepers are closer to an average standard in terms of shot-stopping than Alisson, who seems to be a level above.
David De Gea of Manchester United has overperformed by exactly nine goals since Alisson arrived in the country and in terms of Leicester City's Kasper Schmeichel, he's actually performed slightly below average, underperforming by 0.6 goals in total.
Overall, Liverpool have no regrets four years on from their statement signing. Alisson has proved to be worth every penny in comparison to his peers, and he's still got plenty left in the tank to continue justifying his hefty price tag.
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