Peter Smith

Yeah, it's just that consistency, isn't it, with some of these players like Abraham and Mount.

I remember going down to Chelsea maybe November, December time and

Yeah, you could really sense the love they had for Abraham and the way that he was playing at that time.

But really, has that really sustained through the season?

Perhaps Kovacic has been a more consistent performer.

Well, that's one for Chelsea fans to debate and discuss.

We're going to pause here though.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about a goalkeeper who deserves a bit more praise and a young English winger who surprisingly hasn't had a lot of praise this season.

See you in a minute.

Welcome back to the Sky Sports Football Podcast, where we're picking out some unsung heroes from the Premier League this season.

Now Matt, as a stats man for Sky Sports, I don't need to tell you how tricky it can be to assess goalkeepers with numbers.

Not many metrics to measure how well a keeper is or isn't performing, and even the basic ones such as goals conceded and save percentages can get skewed by the types of shots and defence in front of them, I guess.

So you've had a look at some new in-depth Optus stats to pick out our unsung goalkeeper of the season, haven't you?

and potentially even be in a slightly tricky position once the Premier League returns especially given the fact only Liverpool have had more more wins by one goal margin this season yeah Palace obviously sitting um 11th in the table at the moment and uh I think it's interesting to point out they're 12 points above third from bottom Bournemouth so as you say could get sucked in there but the reflection is they're closer to fourth place Chelsea in terms of points but eight of their Premier League wins have come by one goal margin this season which

as you say, really places the importance on the performances of Gaita week in, week out, doesn't it?

So Gaita's perhaps a,

surprise name at the top of that XG table if you didn't know it you might not pick him as the top performing goalkeeper this season but Adam it's quite tricky isn't it to what colours our perception of these goalkeepers and who's a good goalkeeper and who's a bad goalkeeper is it perhaps more to do with big mistakes they might make or penalty saves they make at the end of a game to rescue points for their team does that have a bigger impact on how we assess a goalkeeper than their

And Matt, don't we also have the situation where we've got goalkeepers of different clubs facing very different challenges on a match day?

You mentioned Guy Eterne, you mentioned Alisson.

These are two keepers who are going to have very different work rates in terms of saving shots.