Goalkeeper Watch Week Six – Just As Good As Scoring Goals

Goalkeepers are a funny bunch – often unnoticed, often underappreciated, and often misunderstood. Goalkeeper Watch shines the spotlight – good, or bad – on the men between the sticks.

In the third article of Goalkeeper Watch, the EFL and Premier League fixtures between Friday 18th and Monday 21st December are under the spotlight. Except this time, we’re looking at Scotland too.

It’s not the first time that Scottish football has come under the lens in Goalkeeper Watch, with the national number one David Marshall taking our inaugural award. However, this week’s recipient of the (literary) goalkeeper of the week prize isn’t as well known as Marshall. In fact, he’s only made 122 appearances in the UK since arriving on British shores in 2009.

These aren’t ideal numbers for any player, but at 28, our winner is very much in his goalkeeping prime. Now Dundee United’s established number one, he’s enjoyed a relatively successful time with the Tangerines, winning promotion to the Scottish Premiership last season.

Benjamin Siegrist has a save percentage of 73.1% so far this season, ranking him sixth of out 15 goalkeepers

Save percentage isn’t a ‘the stat’ to measure goalkeepers’ shot stopping ability by. Post-shot expected goals is preferred (PSxG), which is a measurement that indicates how many shots a goalkeeper has saved based on how likely he or she was to make the save. For an indication of what a good and good and bad PSxG looks like (shown as a + or -), Sam Johnstone currently leads the way in the Premier League this term with +4.4 each, whilst Vincente Guaita sits fourth from bottom (both have played 14 games) with -2.1.

Given the fact that Siegrist most definitely saved Dundee United a point against Jack Ross’s Hibernian on the weekend – and that he’s already put in a string of good performances this year – it’s understandable that his save percentage is quite high. Siegrist made several very good saves vs Hibs, and was duly rewarded when, in the 91st minute, winger Luke Bolton tapped home on the far post to make it 1-1.

Siegrist opened his one-man show fairly early on in proceedings at Easter Road. He made a fantastic one handed parry (and subsequent flick off the line) from a strong header on the corner of the six yard box, keeping the score line goalless ‘early doors’.

Due to the positioning of the header, Siegrist is already slightly more square to the attacker (hence why he looks like he’s diving diagonally) than the penalty spot, meaning his right foot was crucially a step forward in front of his left. Whilst this detail may seem negligible to the goalkeeping-naked eye, it compensated for the lack of time Siegrist had to step into the save (the forward right foot was effectively the step). This is important.

The ‘step’ allows Siegrist to maintain control of the save. This is vital, especially from a short range shot. Often, you’ll see goalkeepers flailing and flapping when it comes to short range reaction saves, but because Siegrist meets the ball due to the ‘step’, this isn’t the case.

As per the video below (1.05 – 1.20), Siegrist makes an excellent double save.

Composure is key after making any save. Siegrist deals with the initial deflected shot very well, and doesn’t over commit in the initial dive. He did well to then stay tall, square to the play (not turning his shoulders), and is a little lucky that the shot is straight at him – but he had to be there in the first place, which he was. One of the most impressive aspects of Siegrist’s performance last weekend was the manner in which he made his saves. All were controlled, proactive, and non-erratic.

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As the sky began to darken and the air began to chill, Siegrist stood shining when Christian Doidge raced through on goal in the latter stages of the game. Hibernian’s number nine suffered the same fate as all but one of the shots that Siegrist had faced that afternoon, with an excellent spread save denying Doidge the goal that would have wrapped it up. After all, making saves is just as good as scoring goals.

The rest, in a very small way, is history.