View: West Brom ace silences critics as stats show he’s among best in PL in his position
West Brom goalkeeper Sam Johnstone has had a difficult start to his first season in the Premier League.
Albion sit just outside the relegation places and are yet to register a league win. He has also conceded 13 goals in his first four games which is the form of a team destined for relegation.
This form has lead to criticism from some Baggies fans, but we think that despite this record Johnstone has been one of the better players in Slaven Bilic’s side and he can be a valuable asset as Albion fight against relegation.
The 27-year-old has arguably been the man of the match in Albion’s last two games against Southampton and Burnley.
In the Burnley game, he kept his first clean sheet and made several vital saves, most notably a second-half block to stop Ashley Barnes opening the scoring. Without Johnstone West Brom could have easily lost against one of the few teams below them in the table.
While he couldn’t stop Southampton scoring a few weeks ago, Johnstone certainly kept the scoreline respectable as he made numerous saves throughout the game from Saints striker Danny Ings. This suggests the problems for Albion isn’t with their goalkeeper, but rather with the players in front of him.
The stats back this up as well. Against Burnley, Johnstone’s expected conceded goals rate (xCG) was 1.95, suggesting he should have conceded two goals, yet he kept a clean sheet. (Wyscout)
This shows he had a very good personal performance and was vital in securing his side a point.
But it wasn’t just against Burnley where Johnstone has performed well. Stats from The Other 14, who monitor stats from Premier League teams who aren’t in the traditional top six, show that Johnstone has been holding his own against his fellow league keepers.
This table shows that Johnstone has made the second-highest number of saves within ‘the other 14’, beaten only by Newcastle United goalkeeper Karl Darlow. Across his five Premier League appearances, the Baggies keeper has had to make 23 saves, which is just under five per game.
This suggests that it’s actually the defence that is allowing these shots that is the problem for Albion. Johnstone is a good keeper but you can’t expect him to stop every shot he faces, it’s up to West Brom’s defenders to limit the number of shots he faces in future.
The PSxG stat suggests how many goals a goalkeeper should have conceded based on the number of shots they’ve faced. Johnstone’s PSxG rate is 14.2, which is one more goal than the 13 he has conceded. While this isn’t a massively impressive stat, it does show that he certainly isn’t underperforming as some Baggies fans have suggested.
The Albion keeper has had a solid season and while it is easy to blame a goalkeeper when a side is conceding lots of goals, we think in this case Johnstone is underserving of the flack he has received. Not only that, he has been and will continue to be, one of the Baggies most important players this season.
In other West Brom news, Bilic has confirmed that a Baggies midfielder will miss the next four to five weeks with a knee injury.
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