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Alisson Becker could join the growing list of Liverpool veterans exiting the club this summer, but just how great of a legacy would he leave behind?
Amidst an exodus of Liverpool and Premier League legends at the end of the 2025/26 season, with Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson both confirmed to exit Anfield, Alisson Becker could be the latest to depart.
On the one hand, Mohamed Salah will leave as perhaps the Premier League’s greatest ever player, with the most Golden Boot and PFA Players’ Player of the Year awards in English history tucked away in his suitcase, while Andy Robertson will depart as a toss-up with Ashley Cole for being the best left-back in Premier League history... but what about Alisson?
Why is Alisson the best goalkeeper in Premier League history?
Enough has been made of the greatness of Virgil van Dijk, credited for the vast majority of Liverpool’s defensive successes across the years - often at the expense of his many centre-back partners whose work has gone unrecognised as a result.
Enough has been made of the genius of an Egyptian superstar at the pitch’s opposite end, and the two phenomenal ball-playing fullbacks that Alisson had on either side of his goalposts for so many years.
Because, for all of Liverpool’s individual and collective outfield brilliance, Alisson Becker had a far tougher job than the majority of football fans seem to realise.
Never has that been more apparent than during the club's 2021/22 season - when Liverpool competed under Jurgen Klopp for a historic quadruple and somehow ended up merely two kicks of a ball away from winning the lot.
That season, Virgil van Dijk returned post-injury to his imperious best, Mohamed Salah won the Golden Boot, Playmaker Award and PFA Players’ Player of the Year, and both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson put up double-digit assist totals.
By its conclusion, Liverpool had won a domestic cup double, lost narrowly in a Champions League final to Real Madrid, and racked up an astonishing 92 points in the Premier League just to lose the title to Manchester City on the season’s final day.
In isolation, that degree of dominance appears to be the ideal conditions for any goalkeeper, with an outfield superteam capable of winning almost any game they played.
Yet Alisson Becker saved over 75% of all shots he faced, the second highest save percentage of his Liverpool career, just behind the 77% he recorded during the Reds’ 97 point-accumulating and Champions League-winning 2018/19 season (data via FBref).
But doesn’t it make sense that Alisson would have a high save percentage in such dominant teams? Surely he’d have faced lower quality shots with the imperious Liverpool defences in front of him?
Well, John Harrison of Goalkeeper found data that points completely to the contrary - in the 2021/22 Premier League season, Alisson faced 54 1v1s – only Leeds’ Illan Meslier faced more – and saved Liverpool from conceding over eight goals more than expected in those situations.
Final #PremierLeague 1v1 Table#Alisson saved #LFC over 8 goals more than expected during 1v1s!👑Will he be able to achieve similar numbers next year?🤔Of the other big 6 GKs only #Ramsdale performed strongly vs 1v1s which will be a concern for #MCFC, #THFC, #CFC & #MUFC 😯 pic.twitter.com/0zxYYwyP3OMay 30, 2022
Harrison’s model uses expected saves to adjudicate the likelihood of a Premier League goalkeeper saving specific shots, functioning similarly to xG in its data-led approach to understanding the value of any given goalscoring scenario.
Not all 1v1s or shots on target are equal, therefore, Harrison’s model analyses each shot type and situation then compares them to the historical average performance of Premier League goalkeepers.
Put simply, the model has created the ‘average Premier League shot-stopper’, much like xG has created the 'average Premier League goalscorer', and Alisson outdid the expected performance of the model in 1v1 situations by over eight goals, or 8.46 to be precise.
In comparison to his fellow shot-stoppers that season, Alisson almost doubled the outperformance of second-best Robert Sanchez, who prevented 4.76 more goals than expected in 1v1 situations.
Ultimately, the notion that Alisson was protected by a rock solid defence is a myth largely propagated by fans who think that only one of Virgil van Dijk or the Brazilian shot-stopper can be praised - as though it's sacrilege to admit that these two humans made of skin and bone weren't perfect and did require support from the other.
Even at their dazzling best, Liverpool fell victim far more often to threatening opposition attacks than they'd like – suffering the fifth most 1v1s conceded in the 2021/22 Premier League season, despite recording 92 points – and, for all of Virgil van Dijk's brilliance, it was more often Alisson that saved the day for a historic club side who won the lot under Jurgen Klopp.
If he is to leave, he will depart as not just a legend of Liverpool, and the Premier League, but as the greatest in his position to ever grace England's top-flight since 1992.
