Tottenham are reported to be looking to replace the Premier League’s second-best keeper with either the third or fourth-best, or perhaps another who didn’t make our top 10.
Come shout at our ranking of the top 10 stoppers…
10) Jose Sa (Wolves)
A few eyebrows were raised last summer when Wolves sold Rui Patricio for the relatively modest sum of £10million. Evidently, they knew what they were doing…
Within days of Patricio joining Roma, Wolves signed his replacement: another Portuguese stopper, a 28-year-old from Olympiakos who cost a shade under £7million.
Sa was solid from the start. More than that, he made decisive contributions and saves, playing a major role in Wolves’ push for Europe last season, even if it tailed off down the home straight. As a strong all-rounder, Sa has no perceivable weakness and his proactive style, compared to Patricio’s reactivity, added more strings to Bruno Lage’s bow.
Okay, we intended this ranking to be an objective list, not based on stats, but Sa’s numbers in his maiden season in the Premier League can’t be ignored. He finished the campaign with the highest save percentage (79.3%) in the league, while the post-shot expected goals against metric suggests he conceded 9.3 goals fewer than he was expected. The next best in the league was David De Gea on 6.7.
No wonder he cleaned up at the club’s Player of the Season awards and, rather than let him heal while playing a stand-in, Wolves would rather Sa guard their goal with a broken wrist, as he has done since August.
9) David Raya (Brentford)
‘Does Strakosha signing give Brentford the Prem’s best goalkeeping department?‘ was the question we posed back in July. Whether they have or have not, Thomas Frank’s options are ridiculously strong.
Thomas Strakosha arrived from Lazio in the summer on a free transfer having reportedly rejected the chance to sit on Manchester United’s bench. Their third choice – currently first back-up due to an injury to Strakosha – is Matthew Cox, an Under-19s European Championship winner with England, a keeper about whom plenty around Brentford and the FA are very excited.
But both have to sit tight while Raya continues to shine in the Bees’ net. The Barcelona-born stopper has been in England for a decade now, having arrived in 2012 to undertake a scholarship at Blackburn. There, he played on loan in the National League with Southport before making the breakthrough with Rovers, earning a £3million switch to…
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