Who’s No1? Alisson challenging De Gea to be the best goalkeeper
Liverpool now have the great goalkeeper who can make the difference between winning the Premier League or not
Agreat goalkeeper is no guarantee of winning major trophies, but not having one is a guarantee you will fall short. Liverpool realised that to great cost on and off the pitch in the Champions League final last May. It was a major statement when they paid Roma £65million – a world record at the time – for Alisson Becker. No one is querying that fee now.
“I would have paid double if I had known how good he is,” Jurgen Klopp told me immediately after the 1-0 Champions League defeat of Napoli on Tuesday. He is reaping the rewards of signing a goalkeeper with the potential to become the world’s best. When was the last time an Anfield keeper was staking such a claim?
For the past three years, this title has been David de Gea’s. His performance at Arsenal last season was the best I have ever seen from a goalkeeper. Without De Gea, Manchester United’s decline since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson would be steeper, yet he arrives at Anfield tomorrow with his position as the best in the Premier League under threat, not just because of Alisson’s recent form, but because of his own dip.
United look as though they will miss out on Champions League qualification for next season. One of the reasons they are already fighting to stay in contention is that De Gea has not been playing to the same high standard. He was getting his underperforming team out of trouble. It is not happening now.
The statistics make alarming reading for United fans. Last season, De Gea conceded 28 goals to help United finish second. He has been beaten 26 times already. His shot-to-save ratio put him at the top with 80.3 per cent a year ago. Now he is 11th, stopping 67.5 per cent of efforts against him.
Contrast this with Alisson, who is rewriting record books, topping the charts with his save ratio. He has 10 clean sheets in 16 matches. In games against Everton, Burnley and, most spectacularly, Napoli, Alisson produced the kind of save we have been accustomed to from De Gea. It was the timing that made them so good; valuable contributions at big moments.
There have been excellent goalkeepers at Liverpool during the past 30 years, Pepe Reina being the best I played with. He won the Premier League’s “Golden Glove” for the most clean sheets in three successive years and was an essential part of a strong defence under Rafael Benitez. But in the era of Petr Cech and Edwin van der Sar, we never claimed to have the league’s best. We never had a keeper who our rivals wished they had signed.
It is a cliche when discussing teams capable of winning the title to acclaim “the final piece of the jigsaw”, but whether Liverpool stay ahead of Manchester City or not, Alisson has taken Klopp’s side to the next level – his performances already worth at least six points after half a season. These are the contributions those who regularly compete for titles take for granted. Show me a title-winning team and I will direct you towards the top-class keeper who turned draws into wins and defeats into draws.
Ask Manchester United supporters to name the most important signing of the Ferguson era and the most likely response is that everything changed at Old Trafford when Eric Cantona joined from Leeds United in 1992. I disagree. I have always believed the seeds of Ferguson’s glorious reign were planted a year earlier when Peter Schmeichel arrived from Denmark. Schmeichel made the biggest difference, keeping 22 clean sheets in the season United ended their title drought.
Gary Neville once told me he felt he only played with two genuinely world-class players in his United career. One was Cristiano Ronaldo. The other was Schmeichel. That is how fundamental he was to United’s success. United endured a shorter wait for the title between 2003 and 2007. What changed? The signing of Van der Sar from Fulham. Van der Sar won four Premier League titles at Old Trafford, bringing assurance to a position that had been a problem after Schmeichel’s exit.
Other clubs can testify to the transformative impact of a class goalkeeper. Ederson massively improved Manchester City at the start of last season, Pep Guardiola’s side no longer gifting avoidable goals. City would not have won 100 points with Claudio Bravo. The confidence across the side grew as the season progressed because they signed a keeper as good with his hands as his feet.
Cech was one of Jose Mourinho’s “untouchables” after his arrival at Chelsea in the summer of 2004. How many titles have Arsenal won since David Seaman left? One. Arsene Wenger never really found another so good, albeit Jens Lehmann performed well in the season of “The Invincibles”.
Go further back and one of my childhood heroes was Everton’s Neville Southall. He was one of the greatest goalkeepers of his generation. I used to stand behind Southall on the Gwladys Street end in the mid-1980s, watching in awe at some of the saves he made.
I especially recall a 2-1 win for Howard Kendall at White Hart Lane in 1985, when Everton and Tottenham were competing for the title. Southall denied Mark Falco a late equaliser. Ray Clemence sunk to his knees at the other end before applauding in mutual respect. In that moment, Everton believed they were going to win the league for the first time since 1970.
It is too early to claim Liverpool have a No 1 of similar stature to these great names, but the signs are good. For Liverpool to stay above City, Klopp had to eradicate every weakness in his line-up. He did that at centre-half when signing Virgil van Dijk, but the Champions League final against Real Madrid brutally underlined that it does not matter how brilliant the rest of your starting XI is, an unreliable goalkeeper will always get found out at the highest level – particularly over the course of 38 mentally-demanding Premier League games.
In Alisson, Liverpool may have recruited their De Gea. If they win the title, they will have their Schmeichel.
It was a major statement when Liverpool paid Roma £65m for Alisson. No one is querying that fee now