Leicester have hardly set the world alight since winning the Premier League in 2015/16. However, their start to the current season has been worrying. They currently sit rock bottom of the table with one draw and six losses after seven games. Their defence, and in particular goalkeeper Danny Ward, has come under extreme criticism.

Former goalkeeper, Kasper Schmeichel, surprisingly left towards the end of the transfer window. Brenden Rodgers came out and defended Ward shortly after this, claiming that he was more than capable of being a Premier League goalkeeper. However, his performances thus far have not been up to standard.

Through a player analysis, we will find out where Ward’s downfalls have been this season and why he needs to be replaced as soon as possible. We will then complete a data analysis to compare Leicester’s style of play to Europe’s top goalkeepers to see who would be most suitable. Finally, we will look at the goalkeeping stats of the most appropriate goalkeepers to create a shortlist.

Where has Ward gone wrong?

The Welshman was never really able to break into the first team and overtake Schmeichel as first-choice goalkeeper. But the Dane’s departure meant that Ward would finally get his chance after four years with Leicester.

Ward has played eight games for Leicester and has never kept a Premier League clean sheet. This season, he conceded five goals against Brighton and six against Tottenham Hotspur, not great considering we’re only seven games in. Part of this has been his sloppy positioning and decision-making.

In the example above, we can see how much space Ward has left to his right, nearly the whole goal. With a free-kick as far out and as central as this one, the goalkeeper should be much more central as he’s able to cover both sides. Instead, Alexis Mac Allister sees his bad positioning and puts his shot in the top corner. A very bad positional error by Ward.

The above example shows the Leicester player losing it close to their goal. At this point, Ward should be tracking back towards his line to prepare for a shot. But as we can see in the second image, he stops on his penalty spot, giving him next to no time to react to the shot. If he’s closer to the goal, it would give him a lot more time to save the shot.

Ward’s shot-stopping has been disappointing this season. However, his passing stats rank amongst the best in the league because of the way Leicester play. But he isn’t the most comfortable with the ball at his feet as the images below demonstrate.

In the above situation, we can see Ward fails to assess the pitch before passing it blindly to his left-back. In the time he takes to make the pass, the Brighton player is able to pounce on the short pass to intercept it and win a free-kick in a dangerous area. It’s lapses of concentration like this that can be dangerous whilst playing near your own goal.

Filters and metrics

We set a criteria to find the right kind of replacement for Ward. Some similar players were included in the initial comparison, like Liverpool’s Alisson and Manchester City’s Ederson, but these were eliminated later in the process. The most important criteria were finding keepers with experience and that are of a high standard. Therefore, our search was focused on the top five European leagues. Finding a goalkeeper in their prime was important too, so we filtered the age range to between 24 and 34. We also filtered out unrealistic options as stated above.

We then used data and statistics to determine keepers with a similar passing style.

Metrics

After finding which goalkeepers suit Leicester’s style of play, we will then look at the best shot-stoppers in the top five European leagues to find the best solution for Leicester. In the next two graphs, players marked green are similar to Ward in both statistics, and players marked in yellow are similar in just one statistic.

Other than Alisson, the most similar player to Ward here is Villareal’s, Gerónimo Rulli. The Argentine has 23.36 passes per 90 to Ward’s 24.03, and 27.95m average pass length to his 27.74m. Rulli would certainly be adept at playing Leicester’s style of football. He is followed by Stuttgart’s Florian Müller who makes 25.25 passes per 90 and has an average pass length of 27.46m.

Wolves’ José Sá and Juventus’ Mattia Perin also rank within 10% of Ward’s stats. Wolves would be unlikely to sell to a rival. Therefore let’s look at Perin. The Italian has started the season in goal for his team because of Wojciech Szczęsny’s injury. Perin makes 22.62 passes per 90 with an average length of 28.52m.

However, if Leicester want to improve on their keeper’s passing ability, the standout in this graph is Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Yann Sommer. Just about making it into the criteria at 33 years old, Sommer has made by far the most passes per 90 this season with an unbelievable 39.69. The Swiss international has been one of the most consistent goalkeepers over the past few seasons, and would definitely be of worth to Leicester if they can prize him away from Germany.

One notable player who sits just outside the similarity lines, but worth a mention is Napoli’s Alex Meret. The Italian has found himself tussling over the number one jersey for the past few seasons with former Arsenal man, David Ospina. Meret has the shortest average pass with 24.59m, making 17.9 passes per 90.

Rui Silva, Jonas Omlin, Édgar Badía, Ionut Radu and Maxime Dupé, are all ones to keep an eye on too, especially the latter. Toulouse’s Dupé has very similar stats to Ward. He has an average pass length of 28.10m and makes 25.45 passes per 90.

This next graph will look at how likely each goalkeeper is to launch the ball when they’re in possession. We will look at their pass launch percentage and goal-kick launch percentage.

There are only two players here that are close to Ward in both statistics, Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy and Borussia Dortmund’s Gregor Kobel. We’ll rule out Mendy for obvious reasons. Although unlikely to leave a Champions League team, 24-year-old Kobel launches 57.60% of his goal-kicks and 23.70% of his passes.

Two players from the last graph show up here, Meret has some of the best stats in these categories. He launches just 22.50% of his goal-kicks and 23.20% of his passes. The second player that shows up again is Perin, he launches 34.40% of his goal-kicks and 28.20% of his passes.

The majority of similar players in terms of pass launch % come from elite teams; Marc-André ter Stegen, Thibaut Courtois, Alisson and Ederson.

Pau López and Sevilla’s Yassine Bounou rank similarly in goal-kick launch percentage with 60.60% and 63% respectively. Silva and Nübel also show up close.

After analysing each keeper’s passing stats, we’ve created a 26-man shortlist so we can look at their goalkeeping abilities.

The standout performers

The above graph looks at advanced stats to determine who the best shot-stoppers are. We look at the number of goals prevented per 90, this is the number of xG conceded minus the number of actual goals conceded, against their average shot difficulty. These stats show why Ward needs to be replaced, he is the worst performing goalkeeper within the top five leagues. He faces fairly difficult shots at 0.39, however, he concedes 0.87 more goals per 90 than he should.

The standout performer here is Sommer. He prevents 0.73 goals per 90, but he does face easier shots than the average goalkeeper (0.22).

Perin and Rulli both impress massively here too with the former just coming out on top. Both face the same difficulty of shots with 0.25. Perin prevents 0.48 goals per 90 with Rulli stopping 0.45. Radu, Omlin and Provedel all perform terrifically here too. They all face shots more difficult than the average and all prevent over 0.39 goals per 90.

Lille’s Léo Jardim faces the most difficult shots in this analysis with a huge 0.55, this means that his goals prevented per 90 stat is not great (-0.41).

Another goalkeeper that disappoints is Müller. The 24-year-old and his team has struggled this season, with Stuttgart finding themselves in 16th place. He concedes 0.12 more goals than he should per 90 and faces shots with a difficulty of 0.29. However, these aren’t awful statistics and he’s one of the youngest players in this criteria.

The next graph will look at the number of outside of penalty area actions per 90 against the percentage of crosses stopped to decide how effective each keeper is at defending.

In terms of players similar to Ward, Sommer stands out here once again. He has stopped 9.1% of crosses he has faced and makes 1.57 actions outside of his penalty area per 90. Being a fairly short keeper at six feet, to be above the average of crosses stopped is very impressive.

Near Sommer, we can actually see Ward, who, according to the stats, is a strong defensive goalkeeper. Müller has the same actions outside of the penalty area per 90 with 1.29 but has stopped fewer crosses (1.6%).

Neither Perin nor Dupé have managed to stop any crosses this season, but they both have over the average amount of actions outside the penalty area per 90, Perin with 0.9 and Dupé with 0.88.

Players situated in the top right quadrant are above-average in both areas. Previously mentioned López and Bounou are located here. Since the former has recently transferred to Marseille, we can rule him out of the running. But Bounou has 0.91 actions outside his penalty area per 90 and has stopped 7.7% of crosses he’s faced.

Three-man shortlist

After analysing every goalkeeper’s shot-stopping and sweeping abilities from this season, we’ve been able to compile the most realistic three-man shortlist for Leicester. We’ve of course eliminated unrealistic options and options that have recently transferred. For example, Sommer and Meret are unlikely to want to leave their clubs as they play in European competitions.

Jonas Omlin – Montpellier’s Omlin has had an outstanding individual start to the season. Since moving from Basel in 2020, the Swiss international has been ever-present in Ligue 1. Valued at £7.2milion, he is the most expensive option on this shortlist. He’s prevented 0.39 goals per 90 this season and across the whole of last season, he prevented 5.95 goals. Omlin could certainly be open to a move to a better league in January.

Gerónimo Rulli – Rulli has recently been called up for Argentina’s last games before the World Cup, proving his great form of late. The 30-year-old has already prevented 2.7 goals this season and has an extremely similar passing style to Ward. In fact, he is the most similar to the Welshman. He has been criticised for some of his performances against English teams in the Champions League, so this could be a risky option. However, his play style suits Leicester and he’s had a great start to the season.

Mattia Perin – The Italian spent the last two seasons on loan at Genoa from Juventus. He now finds himself starting for the Italian champions with Szczęsny out injured. Nevertheless, if the past couple of seasons are anything to go by, Szczęsny will be starting when he’s fit. He may be looking to move teams to get regular playing time, and at 29 years old he has plenty of years left in him. Valued at £3.6milion he’s the cheapest and perhaps the best option on this list. Last season he prevented 5.98 goals and had a save percentage of 73.17%.