Albion Analytics: How does Sanchez compare?

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Albion Analytics takes a look at how our Spanish stopper compares to the best keepers in Europe.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2022-07-04T11:04:00Z

Rob Sanchez kept 11 clean sheets in the Premier League last season.

Robert Sanchez was among the top five European goalkeepers (Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Seria A, Bundesliga) for domestic appearances (37) last season, while only Leeds’ Illan Meslier featured more regularly in the Premier League.

Albion’s no.1 has clocked a total of 64 Premier League appearances, conceding marginally over one goal per game (69 total – 1.08/game), a per-match total well below the European top five league average (1.35/game). In terms of shutting out opponents, Sanchez has kept clean sheets in almost one-third of games (21 total – 32.8% clean sheet rate). Impressively, six of the academy graduate’s clean sheets have been against ‘big-six’ clubs.

In the 2021/22 season, there were 20 goalkeepers – aged U25 at the start of the season – who had clocked at least 13 full matches worth of minutes played, including Sanchez. The Spaniard was top for total crosses stopped (37), with only Saint-Etienne’s Paul Bernadoni (12.1%) influencing a greater proportion of all crosses faced than Sanchez (11.7%), who actually topped the Premier League charts, regardless of age, in that metric.

One of the biggest assets of Sanchez’s game is his all-round ability; in addition to his high-ranking in terms of cross influence, he was among the top five of his age group, European positional peers last campaign for save percentage (72.1%), sweeper-keeper actions (30 – defensive actions which occur outside the penalty area) and total clean sheets (11). It is noteworthy too that he boasts the Opta record for most passes attempted and made by a goalkeeper in a single Premier League game – versus Manchester City.

Only Lewis Dunk (172) and Solly March (142) have made more Premier League appearances for Brighton as a club academy graduate (Sanchez has 64), while the Spaniard is among Graham Potter’s top eight most used players as Brighton head coach, one of 15 players to have made at least a half century of appearances under the former Swansea boss.

Rob's 2020/21 output was strong, making valuable marginal improvements last season. Once again he performed well above the average shot-stopper (based on xG), he more than doubled his rate of cross stopping (5.2% up to 11.7%), bettered an already quality save rate (71.3% up to 72.1%) and more frequently made sweeper-keeper actions outside of his penalty area (0.52/game up to 0.81/game).

In terms of his attacking contribution – his build-up role in goals at Anfield (Trossard’s equaliser) and against Manchester United (for Gross’s goal) – he was involved in 19% of Brighton’s shot-ending sequences in the 2021/22 season, a 4% increase from the last campaign.

WhoScored’s player rating has Sanchez’s best game as the comprehensive 4-0 win over Manchester United, with the Spaniard the highest rated Premier League goalkeeper that match-week. Against the Red Devils, Brighton’s no.1 completed 22/33 passes (8/19 long passes), including his aforementioned excellent pick-out for the third goal, making five important saves – that evening was one of two occasions last season (alongside Brentford at home) where Sanchez made five saves in a single league game and kept a clean sheet.