Why Alisson SHOULD be a contender for Premier League Player of the Year

Sam McGuire

• Updated: 10 May 2023 15:43 BST
• 5 min read

Alisson Becker should be in contention for every single individual award this season. As a goalkeeper, he won’t be. But he should be.

The 30-year-old shot-stopper has been the one constant for the Reds this season and his performances throughout the campaign have kept them within touching distance of a European spot.

Things have clicked over the past month and Liverpool have racked up six wins during an impressive eight-match unbeaten run. They have claimed 20 points from a possible 24 and now find themselves just a single point behind Manchester United in the final Champions League spot.

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During this run, many players have caught the eye. Trent Alexander-Arnold had a run of six assists in five games while Diogo Jota netted five in four. Fabinho has looked back to his former self in the new-look system while Curtis Jones has made the left-sided centre-midfield spot his own.

Liverpool have been much better but their last five wins have been by a one-goal scoreline. In those matches, Alisson has made a total of 12 saves. In the 1-0 win over Fulham, the former Roma man made two stunning saves to thwart Carlos Vinicius.

The first was at 0-0. He got fingertips to an effort that looked to be curling into the top corner. The second was after he raced out to close down an angle and made himself as large as possible to stop a certain goal.

In doing so, he racked up 100 saves for the season. This stat alone highlights his importance to this team this season. It is the first time he’s made 100 saves in a single campaign for the Reds. The fact he’s been able to make the saves is a positive but the fact he’s had to make this number of saves is a negative, as Klopp mentioned after the win in mid-week.

"He is for sure the most consistent player we have this season. That's actually not bad news, it's good news, because if we are not in a great shape and the level of the goalie drops as well then we would have been completely lost."

There have been times during the campaign in which Alisson has single-handedly kept Liverpool in matches that they have gone on to take something from. At one stage, the Reds would’ve likely been dragged into a relegation battle if the 61-cap Brazil international had followed his teammates in allowing his standards to drop.

It was always a matter of when and not if the Reds would get back on track. Alisson just had to keep Liverpool within striking distance of a Champions League spot while Klopp and his coaching team figured things out.

On Saturday, the 2018 summer signing kept his 100th clean sheet.

The one-time most expensive goalkeeper in the world penned a new six-year deal in August 2021 so is expected to call Anfield home for the long term and following his clean sheet against Brentford, he reiterated his desire to stay with the club.

“I hope I'm going to reach 200, 300, as many as possible,” he said.

“But this is not only a number of myself, it's from all the boys, from all the staff, goalkeeping coach department, everybody. We work together with a common goal and a clean sheet is a common goal of ourselves. Clean sheets can put us in a closer situation to win games. This game was a good example of that, the last match as well – 1-0. We can take that for all the tournament – 1-0 is all we need. I'm really happy about that and it's something we can be proud of.”

One day later, Manchester United lost one of their games in hand. Said Benrahma scored what turned out to be the winner after a goalkeeping error by David De Gea. The Spaniard allowed a tame, long-range effort to bobble in. It is one of many mistakes the Man United No.1 has made this term.

He allowed Josh DaSilva’s shot to beat him from distance in Brentford’s 4-0 win, with the ball going under the former Atletico Madrid man. He was also nutmegged in the FA Cup win over Everton. Roberto Firmino fired the ball between the legs of De Gea in Liverpool’s 7-0 win over United too.