A clean sheet is a priceless commodity in football and keeping them on a regular basis is a rare artform. They can win league titles. They can transform a very good side into a great side.
Obviously, possessing a stoic, stubborn and well-organised rearguard is key to this but not even the finest put-together back-four can function – never mind excel – without having a superb custodian between the sticks behind them.
Premier League Golden Glove Winners
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Petr Cech - Four
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Joe Hart - Four
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Ederson - Three
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Pepe Reina - Three
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Alisson Becker - Two
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David de Gea - Two
It is they who keep out the Mo Salahs of this world when the Mo Salahs of this world inevitably find a way through. It is they who are, at times, a one-man determinant between success and failure.
Simply put, a keeper who can accumulate shut-outs at roughly the same rate that a prolific striker can score goals is worth their weight in gold, and then some.
Goodness knows then what is the collective value of the following six elite shot-stoppers, the only keepers to win the Premier League Golden Glove award on multiple occasions since it was conceived in 2005.
David De Gea - Two
When the Spaniard departed Old Trafford in July 2023 following the expiry of his contract he then spent an entire year in the wilderness, a free agent minus a club.
Eventually, finally, Fiorentina swooped this summer, offering the 33-year-old an opportunity to rebuild a reputation that once had him heralded as one of the top three keepers in the world.
The chief reason for his enforced exile is as unusual as it was straightforward. Across his lengthy career, football tactics had evolved to the point where every side now plays out from the back. And if De Gea is a remarkable shot-stopper on his day, with the ball at his feet he is distinctly limited.
Even acknowledging this however, it was a situation that staggered given his esteemed credentials. Only six players have ever played more games for Manchester United and no keeper – not even Peter Schmeichel – has kept more Premier League clean sheets.
In 2017/18, and as recently as 2022/23, he accrued more shut-outs than any of his peers.
Alisson - Two
The Brazilian is seemingly forever fated to be directly compared to Ederson, his rival for an international jersey and, for several seasons, his adversary at the summit of the Premier League as Liverpool and Manchester City duked it out for domestic silverware.
In 2022 the pair each accrued 20 clean sheets, sharing the Golden Glove merit, and this was one fewer than he amassed in 2019 when he won the award outright.
Now on the brink of veteran status, Alisson was purchased from Roma for a hefty £67m, a figure that in hindsight feels like a bargain after he bolstered Liverpool’s first and only Premier League title triumph and this after playing a pivotal role in the club’s Champions League glory twelve months earlier.
His agility, razor-sharp reactions and excellent distribution made him the perfect fit for Jurgen Klopp’s adventurous mandate that returned the Reds to the top table.
Pepe Reina – Three
Extremely well-regarded he may be but even so, is Pepe Reina criminally under-rated?
After all, only two keepers have kept more Premier League clean sheets in the competition’s 32 years of existence, Reina an integral component of a Rafa Benitez back-line that was a study in parsimony.
Moreover, as part of the Spanish influx of the mid-2000s, the World Cup winner was at the vanguard of sweeper-keepering in England, doing Alisson things when Alisson was still in school.
When he wasn’t venturing outside his box however, actively taking part in Liverpool’s build-up play, Reina altered his ego between the sticks. He was conservative, unflashy; always playing the percentages. The definition of a pair of safe hands.
During his nine years at Anfield, the Reds were never favourites in the Premier League odds, yet he kept more clean sheets than Van der Sar, Cech, and Lehmann for three season’s running. Props are due.
Ederson – Three
Sweeper-keepers were not an entirely alien concept prior to the Brazilian joining Manchester City in 2017 yet it’s irrefutable that Ederson has revolutionised his position, dramatically broadening the parameters of what a keeper is expected to do.
Subsequently, his name alone conjures up snapshots of perfectly weighted 30-yard pinged balls to team-mates in space, or committing to a heart attack-inducing five-yard pass amidst heavy pressure.
He is magnificent at both, and the split-second calculations behind each ‘risk’ that he takes should not be under-valued either.
Yet still, his principle task will always be to keep the ball out of his net and the fact is that he’s rather good at that too.
It certainly helps to have the likes of Kompany, Laporte and Stones in front of him, but the Selecao regular kept a league-high number of clean sheets for three years running from 2020 on.
Joe Hart – Four
That Hart boasts more Golden Gloves than Ederson is a neat twist, given that the former England number one saw his career suffer terribly from Pep Guardiola’s arrival and the introduction of his methods, whereas the Brazilian has come to epitomise the new way.
Considered bang-average with the ball at his feet Hart was given short shift by the ruthless Catalan, first replaced by the erratic Claudio Bravo, then later by Ederson who showed how it all should be done.
From that moment on, Hart’s standing – and confidence too, presumably - diminished rapidly, soon after finding himself a back-up at Burnley and Spurs.
An Indian Summer at Celtic was welcomed by many who felt a player capped 75 times by his country deserved better.
This freefall was all a far cry from Hart’s prime, frustrating feared strikers and keeping a succession of clean sheets as City rose to prominence.
Petr Cech – Four
There were three principle reasons why Chelsea were routinely short-priced in the football odds in the mid-2000s.
There was Jose Mourino of course. The Special One, back in the days when he really was special.
There was the rock-solid partnership of John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho, a centre-back pairing that turned Stamford Bridge into a fortress.
And there was Cech, arguably the finest keeper the English top-flight has witnessed in modern times.
In his first season in West London, the towering Czech kept 24 clean sheets, a figure that has yet to be surpassed. That equates to 63% of Chelsea’s league commitments that season as they romped to a first league title for 60 years.
Perhaps the most impressive facet of Cech’s record-equalling four awards is that they are spread over 11 years for two different clubs (Chelsea and Arsenal).
*Credit for the main photo belongs to Alamy*
