Jurgen Klopp wasn’t shy in showing his appreciation to Alisson Becker following Liverpool’s 3-1 win against Crystal Palace on Sunday.
On the day, the Brazil international made four standout saves to deny the hosts at key points within the match.
And at full-time, Klopp headed straight to Alisson to commend his display.
"I said to him just now, 'thank you for saving our backside again!'," said the Reds boss. "He said, 'that’s my job'. Of course it is very helpful to have a world-class goalkeeper at the back!"
Such displays have become routine for the 29-year-old since he arrived at Anfield. And while he’s highly cherished on the red half of Merseyside, it seems he’s been less admired from a wider league perspective for large parts of this season so far.
The likes of Ederson, Edouard Mendy and Aaron Ramsdale have all been lauded through various stages this campaign, yet Alisson’s praise has often been few and far between.
However, based on key goalkeeping metrics, the Liverpool man continues to impress over these league rivals.
In terms of league clean sheets accumulated, only Manchester City’s Ederson (12) has more than Alisson (10). Although admittedly this isn’t always the best way in which to analyse a keeper’s performance due to factors such as the quality of the defence ahead.
Instead, it’s better to use expected goals against (xGA), and in particular post-shot xGA.
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Post-shot xGA is a metric that determines just how good a shooting opportunity is.
It considers a range of factors including the distance from goal, the angle of the shot, the pace of the effort, how it was assisted and what part of the body was used to hit the ball. This is done by utilising historical shot data.
The benefit of this is that we are able to better analyse whether a keeper should have conceded more or fewer goals based on the shots they have faced.
This season Alisson has conceded 18 league goals, though one of those was an own-goal and is therefore removed as this wouldn’t have counted as an opposition shot in terms of xG. Over that same period, his combined xGA is 18.8 according to FBref.
Therefore what this means is that the Brazilian has overperformed by 2.8 goals this season.
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That’s a better performance than each of Ederson, Ramsdale and Mendy, with only Manchester United’s David De Gea and Wolves’ Jose Sa able to better him in this department so far.
Yet an additional important trait that Alisson holds over all of that group is his capacity to come out of his goal and sweep behind the defence so effectively.
A successful high defensive line requires an aggressive keeper who is willing to come out and clear dangerous balls played inside his defensive half.
Nobody is doing that better than Alisson and he's so far made more defensive actions outside the penalty area (28) than any other Premier League keeper.
Although he received plaudits for his display across 90 minutes at Selhurst Park on Sunday, the above captures that he should also be receiving them for what’s been another stellar campaign for Liverpool.
