As Alisson Becker is heavily linked to a Juventus move, we take a deeper look at how Liverpool's goalkeepers compare
KIRKBY, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 13: (THE SUN OUT, THE SUN ON SUNDAY OUT) Alisson Becker, Giorgi Mamardashvili and Freddie Woodman of Liverpool during a training session at AXA Training Centre on February 13, 2026 in Kirkby, England. (Photo by Nikki Dyer - LFC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Alisson Becker, Giorgi Mamardashvili and Freddie Woodman of Liverpool during a training session at AXA Training Centre on February 13, 2026(Image: Nikki Dyer - LFC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
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In a season that has not been at standard required for Liverpool, reports of Juventus' interest in Alisson Becker have added insult to injury for many supporters.
For some, the idea of letting the club's greatest goalkeeper of the Premier League era leave during a period of such uncertainty is anathema to the ambition Liverpool must show in challenging for trophies again next season - especially when his understudy, the Georgian shot-stopper Giorgi Mamardashvili, has yet to fully convince fans of his readiness to take over the No. 1 shirt.
For others, the general frustration with the Reds letting top-class players walk away for free makes the idea of cashing in on Alisson more palatable. Injuries have begun to impact the Brazilian's minutes over the last few seasons, and have coincided with a reduced efficiency in the legendary keeper's passing.
As long as Juventus remain at the table, questions will remain around what the right decision should be. Should Liverpool let Alisson go? And if so, do they need a new No.1 goalkeeper?
Join us as we dive into the stats surrounding one of the most crucial decisions the Reds will have to make this summer.
Assessing the 'drop-off'
To start off, it's important to establish whether Alisson truly is experiencing a decline significant enough to warrant immediate change. With Liverpool having activated a one-year extension to the veteran's contract, the option remains open to kick the can down the road, so to speak, and delay the decision until next summer.
This would, however, have financial ramifications. There seems to be little chance of another extension to Alisson's deal, making the most likely outcome if he is to remain at the club this summer that he leaves on a free transfer in the next.
As one of the highest earners in the squad, there is certainly a case to be made - however callous it may sound - that those funds could be better invested in a player who can stay fit over a whole season.
Alisson staying would also likely mean another year of Mamardashvili as the No.2 option. If the Reds reach the end of next season with the Georgian still playing second fiddle and unready to take on the responsibility of a No.1, that would likely spell the end of the road for his Liverpool career, too, and leave the club potentially unable to recoup the £29million spent on his signing from Valencia.
All this, however, depends on whether Alisson can be expected to maintain his current levels, or if what we are already seeing marks the beginning of a decline.
Rodrigo Gomes of Wolverhampton Wanderers turns it past Alisson of Liverpool FC to make it 1-0 during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Liverpool at Molineux in Wolverhampton, England, on March 3, 2026. (Photo by Stuart Leggett/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alisson has seen some of his key performance metrics dip this season(Image: Stuart Leggett/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images))
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The stat that you're most likely to have come across already is Alisson's save percentage this season. In the Premier League in 2025-26, it stands at an all-time low of 65.1%, with the Brazil international never previously having posted a league save percentage below 70% during his time at Liverpool.
Caution is required, though. The Reds have conceded some really poor chances this season and, with the midfield doing little to protect the defence and the team struggling from set pieces, the finger of blame cannot be pointed solely at the goalkeeper for failing to save as many chances.
Indeed, in the Champions League, the competition in which Liverpool were (for the most part) more solid this season, Alisson's save percentage over six games was 81.2%.
In the interest of fairness, he was injured for both legs of the tie with Paris Saint-Germain, and despite a strong performance against Inter in which Fotmob rated him the Reds best player, he only faced two shots on target in that game.
Other games in Alisson's Champions League campaign included thrashings of Marseille, Qarabag and Galatasaray, in which Liverpool's opponents had little more than half-chances and pot-shots.
Still, when totting up his save percentage across all competitions this season, Alisson emerges with a respectable 70.4%.
More meaningful conclusions can perhaps be drawn from his 'goals prevented' statistics, which are calculated by subtracting actual goals conceded from the expected goals on target a keeper faces .
The last time Liverpool missed out on Champions League qualification in 2022-23, Alisson was named their player of the season, preventing 8.32 goals across all competitions.
Over the course of this season in all competitions, however, the former Roma keeper has prevented -1.5 goals - meaning he has let in slightly more than would normally be expected.
While this might not appear that dramatic, what is concerning is that Alisson has posted negative numbers in this regard twice in the last three seasons, starting with the 2023-24 season - the season in which he first picked up a hamstring injury - which could suggest that he perhaps no longer trusts his body to make as many explosive, diving saves, and is relying more than ever on his peerless positioning and awareness.
Also starting with the 2023-24 season, Alisson's passing took a noticeable downward turn. Over his first five league seasons at Liverpool, he averaged an 83.7% pass completion rate and was successful with an average 46.8% of his long passes.
Over the last three, he has completed an average 81.8% of his passes overall and just 38% of his long balls. This season, those numbers hit an all-time low of 78.4% and 39.4% in all competitions respectively.
With the Reds still looking to play out from the back, logic should dictate a keeper who is strong with the ball at his feet should be essential to this style - but then again, Mamardashvili was clearly not bought with this in mind, and Gianluigi Donnarumma's signing for Manchester City also perhaps indicates that top sides have returned to prioritising the simple matter of keeping the ball out of the back of the net above all else.
These stats nevertheless point to one conclusion. Sadly, Alisson's decline is real - but how much of a problem is that, and should Liverpool now be putting their trust in Mamardashvili instead?
The next No.1?
For this graphic, I compiled data from Fotmob across all competitions in the 2025/26 season to get the best possible sample size for both goalkeepers' performances:
Alisson and Mamardashvili's key stats for the 2025-26 season (Source: Fotmob)
Alisson and Mamardashvili's key stats for the 2025-26 season (Source: Fotmob)(Image: Fotmob/Morgan King/Liverpool ECHO)
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From the raw numbers alone, there appears to be only one winner. Alisson has outperformed Mamardashvili in every possible metric apart from penalty saves - whereas Alisson saved one of the eight penalties he faced this season (including five in the Community Shield against Crystal Palace), Mamardashvili has a superior rate of one from four, that being Erling Haaland's penalty in Man City's 3-0 win at the Etihad in November.
Still, low numbers like these aren't much to go off. Looking instead at goals conceded, Mamardashvili has let in six fewer than Alisson - but this has come from just over half the number of minutes the latter has played.
It is worth saying at this point that Mamardashvili has been between the sticks for some of Liverpool's worst runs of the season. This is not to suggest that he alone is responsible for these runs - more to give an impression of the challenging nature of his first season at the club.
For starters, Alisson's first injury of the campaign coincided with the Reds' initial collapse immediately following seven wins from seven at the start of the season.
Again, correlation is not the same as causation, but after Alisson played in the 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace and the first 56 minutes of the 1-0 defeat to Galatasaray in the Champions League league phase, Mamardashvili then had the less-than enviable position of being in goal for defeats against Chelsea, Manchester United and Brentford, followed by an awful run that saw Liverpool ship three or more goals in three successive games against City, Nottingham Forest and PSV Eindhoven.
While no one would hold Mamardashvili responsible for any of those defeats, it does perhaps speak to the value of confidence in a goalkeeper that the Reds looked steadier when following up the PSV humiliation with a 13-game unbeaten streak, in which Alisson played every game apart from the win in the FA Cup against Barnsley.
Since then, Liverpool have lost three with Alisson in goal and five with Mamardashvili - although this includes both legs as Arne Slot's were outclassed by PSG in the Champions League quarter-final.
With the difficulty of the fixtures he has played in and the form of his team-mates, it would instead serve better to look at more individual metrics.
The No.25, however, has still performed a grade below Alisson this season. His save percentage of 65.3% is actually better than Alisson's based on league performances alone but, as shown before, the Brazilian has his number across all competitions.
Likewise, Mamardashvili has prevented -4.04 goals in all competitions and managed just three clean sheets from 19 appearances.
Again, he has probably had an even worse rub of the green than Alisson in terms of the team performances in which he has racked up these numbers, but great keepers - like Alisson himself in 2022-23 - should be able to more reliably rescue their team-mates when the going gets tough.
When it comes to ability on the ball, the numbers back up the eye test in showing that Mamardashvili is an unreliable option for a team that tries to play out from the back, completing just 32.8% of his long passes and 68.4% overall.
He is still only 25 years old, though, and this side of his game is more easily mitigated by training as well as coaching decisions that adapt build-up to suit him better.
The more concerning problem is his general level of goalkeeping, which has dropped off significantly since Liverpool secured the deal for his services in 2024, a year in advance of his arrival.
The keeper Liverpool signed was one who had a save percentage of 72.5% in the 2023-24 LaLiga season, and had prevented a whopping 9.26 goals as well as saving three of the six penalties he faced.
Mamardashvili kept 13 league clean sheets that season in a Valencia team that conceded 45 goals over 38 games, finishing ninth with fewer goals scored than relegated Almeria.
Mamardashvili prevented more goals than any other LaLiga keeper in 2023-24
Mamardashvili prevented more goals than any other LaLiga keeper in 2023-24(Image: Getty Images)
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Put simply, Mamardashvili was Valencia's standout player, and had been more than reliable for some time. His save percentage was above 70% in both of the two previous seasons, 2021-22 and 2022-23.
After signing for Liverpool, though, that percentage dipped to 66% in his final season at Valencia while his goals prevented nosedived to -1.48, and there have been little to no signs of improvement statistically in his first year at his new club.
In other words, Liverpool's heir to Alisson has been unable to recover his form for nearly two years at this point.
While Mamardashvili is not yet at what would normally be considered a goalkeeper's peak, none of this points toward him being ready to take on the responsibility of being Liverpool's No. 1.
The verdict
It's not looking good for Mamardashvili. But that doesn't mean Liverpool supporters should write him off just yet. The form he showed in his penultimate season at Valencia and at EURO 2024, in which he saved 78.9% of the shots he faced and prevented 4.67 goals, was every bit befitting of a successor to the great Alisson.
It is also reasonable to be confident that he will improve in his second season. Much-maligned has been Liverpool's defenders' tendency to pass the ball onto Mamardashvili's weaker right foot, which is indicative of an overall unfamiliarity between him and his team-mates.
This is perfectly understandable, given the Reds' rearguard has undergone its biggest overhaul in the last eight years this season, and neither Alisson nor former No.2 Caoimhin Kelleher are left-footed.
To boot, Liverpool's defence also has to improve from a tactical and individual standpoint next season if the Reds are to come anything close to challenging for silverware again - hopefully reducing the pressure on whoever is between the sticks.
Nevertheless, it would appear risky to go into the new campaign with an unchallenged Mamardashvili as the No. 1.
If links to other clubs continue, we'll run the rule over other options who could replace Alisson in a future article, but achievable options could include Porto's Diogo Costa, Borussia Dortmund's Gregor Kobel or Roma keeper Mile Svilar, all of whom can boast superior save percentages and goals prevented to both Alisson and Mamardashvili this season.
The standout homegrown option is James Traffford, though getting Man City to the negotiating table for their No.2 might be another matter entirely.
It is possible that Liverpool could look to give Mamardashvili competition in the form of a younger, up-and-coming keeper, something which would be in line with the club's recruitment policy.
If you take nothing else away from this article, let it be that Mamardashvili is not a bad keeper. He is, in fact, a pretty good one, and will likely turn out to be solid at Premier League level at the very least.
But he is no Alisson. Few come close to the levels he set at his best, and he remains a safe pair of hands - though there are other, younger keepers with better injury records who may be able to match him now.
What can't be disputed is that, if Liverpool's owners do harbour ambitions of returning to the top next season, the identity of the man in goal is a decision they cannot afford to get wrong.