Home

Marc-André Ter Stegen, safe as houses

German stopper has kept 13 clean sheets this season and has only conceded six goals

Marc-André Ter Stegen is still having a near-perfect season and is one of the key reasons why his team is flying high at the top of the league table.

The 1-0 defeat of Getafe on Sunday means that the German goalkeeper has now kept clean sheets in an amazing 13 of 17 league games played. He has the best goalkeeping record in Europe's main leagues, both in absolute terms and for his shots to saves ratio.

Top stats

The only teams with a comparable number of clean sheets in Europe's top five leagues are Newcastle United (12 in 20 games) and Juventus (12 in 19).

Ter Stegen has only conceded 6 goals in 17 games, just 0.35 a game. Real Madrid, with three, is the only team to have beaten him more than once in a game. Apart from El Clásico, the only games where he had to pick the ball out of the net, and just once, were the ones with Real Sociedad, Espanyol and Osasuna. Note that only Joselu's penalty for Espanyol was at Spotify Camp Nou, the only time Ter Stegen has been beaten in a home game.

FC Barcelona has the lowest number of goals against in Europe's big five championships. Here again Newcastle are second with 11 goals in 20 games, followed by Lens (13 in 19) and Villarreal (13 in 18).

Save king

Ter Stegen has stopped an immense 84.62% of the shots against him this league season. Here again he tops the European ranking, with Yehvann Diouf of Reims second with 83.93% and Mattia Perin of Juventus third with 83.33%.

But brilliant as he has been, it would be unfair to give him 100 per cent of the credit for Barça's amazing stats. A goalkeeper also needs a strong defence in front of him, and Ter Stegen has just that. He has made a total of 34 saves this season, but we note that keepers like Donnarumma, Pope, Rulli and Yehvann have made 54, 51, 47 and 46 saves respectively. Figures that show that the Barça defence has also played its part in the impressive achievement

More news here