Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Atalanta highlighted the perils of being a goalkeeper. Is there any other position in which a player can go from hero to zero so swiftly?
The Serie A side had seven Opta-defined big chances, which is a ridiculously high total to concede by the Reds’ standards. To put it into context, Liverpool had allowed opposing sides 2.1 per game this season prior to facing Atalanta, and seven in total across its most recent five matches.
Stand-in stopper Caoimhín Kelleher saved three of them and his success rate, with opportunities which the data provider believes “a player should reasonably be expected to score”, has been decent this season. The Ireland international has saved 58 per cent of the on-target big chances he has faced, only a touch behind the 63 per cent posted by Alisson Becker. However, a negative aspect of this occurred against Atalanta and highlighted why the deputy won’t dethrone the king.
Liverpool has famously come back from three goals down in Europe before, most notably in Istanbul to win the Champions League in 2005 and in the semi-final against Barcelona in 2019. But the former will be forever referred to as a miracle while the latter recovery occurred at Anfield. If the Reds knock out Atalanta from this position then it will be one of the finest achievements in the storied career of Jürgen Klopp.
While the chances would still be slim, Liverpool would obviously stand a better chance of European redemption if it had only lost by two goals on Thursday night. Mario Pašalić’s goal to put the visitors 3-0 up eradicated that possibility and showed the difficulties goalkeepers can have with big chances.
Two-goal scorer Gianluca Scamacca won the ball in midfield and played it to Éderson, putting him clean through on the Reds’ goal. The live text on WhoScored neatly summarizes what happened next: “Caoimhín Kelleher makes a save (Diving, Parried into danger).” The Liverpool goalkeeper kept out the initial shot, only to deliver the ball directly into the path of Pašalić, who couldn’t miss. Saving a big chance is a lot less impressive if doing so merely creates another.
This issue appears to be Kelleher’s worst flaw, certainly based on an assessment of the available Premier League data. Statistics from Fantasy Football Scout show that 20.2 per cent of saves in the English top flight since the summer of 2011 have seen the ball parried to the opposition.
Kelleher has been consistently above this in league football for the Reds. The 25-year-old is one of 104 goalkeepers to have made at least 46 saves (his total) across the last 13 seasons, and only six have parried a greater proportion of them to opposing players than the 30.4 per cent he has.
Liverpool’s back up shot stopper is far from alone in having these troubles for a big club. Chelsea paid $31m (£25m/€29m) for Robert Sánchez last summer and have seen him push 31.5 per cent of his saves towards the opposition, for instance.
