Is it just me or are Premier League goalkeepers getting younger these days?

Goalkeepers have long been feted for playing into their 40s, but outfield players are lasting longer while keepers may be getting younger.

Goalkeepers are different, they say. Goalkeeping, we’re led to believe, is a specialist field in which players mature at a later age but have a longer shelf life because they haven’t been chasing round in circles for years putting considerable strain on their knee joints. The goalkeeper, we’re reliably (and not infrequently) informed, is usually the older, slightly more experienced professional.

Anecdotally it’s been recognised for a while that playing careers are getting longer across the board. No matter what happens next, Cristiano Ronaldo finished his first season back with Manchester United as the Premier League’s third highest goalscorer at 37 years of age. Luka Modric of Real Madrid was widely praised throughout much of last season for his performances at 36, while Karim Benzema tore a hole through several defences at 34.

There seems little question that the playing career of the professional player is longer than it ever used to be. Improvements in training and conditioning have ensured that, quite likely alongside considerable improvements in our understanding of the human body and significantly better health. It seems inconceivable, for example, that a player would endorse a brand of cigarettes, as Stanley Matthews did at the peak of his playing career. As with the population in a broader sense, fewer players smoke and players’ drinking culture seems much more controlled than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Diets and training regimes have changed immeasurably.

And the modern professional football career is simply worth so much more than it used to be. Matthews was one of the most famous footballers in the world in the early 1950s, but his basic wage at Blackpool would still have been restricted to football’s maximum wage, which was calculated to be around twice that of a skilled worker. Plenty of players had second jobs, none were able to retire off what they earned while playing, and injuries that would now take just a few weeks to clear up could be career-threatening.

And the nature of the goalkeeper position has changed over the years. Distribution of the ball is now expected to be quick, efficient and thoughtful, rather than an aimless punt of the ball down the pitch. In terms of this change in longevity, perhaps all that’s happening is the outfield players are now finding their careers…