How Middlesbrough goalkeeper Sol Brynn compares to three options Boro have lined up to compete with him
gazettelive
16:46, 30 Jul 2026
How Middlesbrough goalkeeper Sol Brynn compares Mark Travers, Radek Vitek and Kayne van Oevelen
How Middlesbrough goalkeeper Sol Brynn compares Mark Travers, Radek Vitek and Kayne van Oevelen
Middlesbrough are exploring the market to strengthen their goalkeeper department this summer, with Radek Vitek, Mark Travers and Kayne van Oevelen all potential options to have emerged.
Teessider Sol Brynn stepped up to be Boro’s first-choice last season, with mixed reviews. Still young and with potential to grow and learn from his experiences of last term, Boro’s transfer plan should not mean writing Brynn off completely.
But what a new option can do is provide genuine competition in between the sticks for Boro, which will test Brynn’s mental strength and hunger to fight for the spot. In turn, it could help improve him.
As for who Boro should sign, they’re believed to be exploring a number of options, and a lot will likely depend on the finances of a deal and the respective players’ other interested clubs. But in terms of quality alone, we thought we’d take a deep dive into the three keepers in comparison to Brynn.
Given Manchester United keeper Vitek spent last season in the Championship on loan at Bristol City, it’s far easier to make the direct comparison with Brynn.
In the case of Travers, we’ve used his statistics from his half-season loan spell at Boro in 2025-26, with the Ireland international then opting to turn down a Riverside return in favour of the switch to Everton, where he then played only two cup games.
As for Van Oevelen, who joined Ipswich Town from relegated FC Volendam this summer, we use the 22-year-old’s numbers from his 26 Eredivisie appearances last season.
Breaking the comparison down into the three key areas of modern goalkeeping, here’s how Brynn compares to the three known Boro goalkeeper targets.
Shot-stopping
Of the four goalkeepers, Brynn is last in the shot-stopping category. In terms of his save percentage, he is the only keeper who doesn’t hit the 70s percentile, with only 68.9% of the shots he faced last season saved. That ranked him 12th in the Championship.
In comparison, Vitek was seventh on the league’s list, saving 71.37% of the shots he faced. In the Eredivisie, Van Oevelen saved 74.5% of the shots his struggling side conceded. Travers, meanwhile, stopped 76.2% during his 17 appearances for Boro in 2024-25.
But save percentage is not a perfect measurement by any means, because it doesn’t take into account the quality of chances that teams concede.
That’s where the goals prevented statistic is a really helpful tool for judging a goalkeeper’s impact. It won’t appeal to every fan, with the calculation based on the expected Goals on Target statistic, compared to the actual number of goals conceded.
The xGOT is a post-shot model, in comparison to xG, which is pre-shot. xGOT measures the quality and accuracy of a shot after it has been struck.
Still though, Brynn emerged as the weakest of the four keepers in this measurement, and the only player whose goal prevented number was a negative. Finishing 20th of last season’s Championship goalkeepers, his goals prevented was -6.64 - which in simple terms means he conceded more than six goals than the quality of shots he faced suggested he should have.
In comparison, Vitek was the fourth best keeper in the Championship for this metric last season, preventing 5.36 goals in total. That is an improvement on Travers’ 3.44 rate during his Boro spell, albeit in less than half the games that Vitek played at Bristol City.
The best of the lot for goals prevented, however, was Van Oevelen, with a mightily impressive 7.91 goals prevention rate in the Dutch top flight.
Effectively, what both tell us is that, of the three options being considered by Boro, all are upgrades on Brynn as far as shot-stopping is concerned.
Commanding the area
This was one of Brynn’s noticeable strengths at Boro. Early in the season Rob Edwards spoke of how Brynn ‘calmed him’, which was a huge statement given his relative inexperience.
Indeed, if there was to be a criticism of Travers during his impressive spell at Boro, it was that he didn’t command his area anywhere near as assuredly as Brynn does. The Ireland international opted to punch more often than catch.
That’s reflected in the numbers which, to be better reflective in a comparison of players who each made differing numbers of appearances, we compared over a per-90 average.
Brynn averaged 1.02 successful high claims in comparison to 0.88 from Travers. Van Oevelen was slightly ahead of both with 1.1, but Vitek topped the list with a successful high claims rate of 1.12 per game, putting his 6ft 6in height advantage to good use.
What’s worth noting though is that the numbers will naturally be skewed by how many crosses you face. Vitek, for example, faced 103 crosses more than Brynn last term.
The numbers suggest all but Travers are particularly strong are this element of goalkeeping, however,
Meanwhile, not commanding the area as such, but more just outside. The modern game often requires goalkeepers to be alert and ready to sweep up outside their areas.
It could be particularly important for Boro under Kim Hellberg, as the Swede likes his side to be aggressive and play with a high defensive line.
There were times when Brynn could look a little shaky when needing to rush outside his area, though in general, there weren’t many obvious instances where it was felt he could and should have come for something out of his box when he didn’t.
Again, this can be skewed by a general team performance or style not offering requirements for it to be needed, but Brynn’s sweeps per 90 rate was 0.37, in comparison to Vitek (0.73), Travers (0.47) and Van Oevelen (0.51).
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Distribution
As well as the commanding of his area, Brynn’s distribution was solid throughout last term. In fact, he’s the only keeper of the four to have an assist on his resume.
That came in Boro’s victory over QPR, when Brynn went route-one, with quick-thinking and a pinpoint punt from his hands to send Morgan Whittaker through on goal.
With a successful long balls percentage of 26.8%, Brynn is only third among the four keepers, though. Vitek’s 30.3% is slightly better than Van Oevelen’s 28.3%. Travers is fourth with just 21.1% of his longer passes finding a team-mate.
In general, however, Hellberg will prefer his sides to have possession, and that will rely on the goalkeepers being good with their feet and being able to get involved in being patient in possession before striking at the right moment to break through the lines.
In this sense, Brynn showed incredible composure with the ball at his feet for Boro last term and has the best overall pass completion rate of the four keepers with 62.8%.
Travers, playing a similar style at Boro under Michael Carrick, only managed 58%, while Vitek at Bristol City was just behind Brynn with 61.9%. Van Oevelen trails behind on 53.5%, though it’s fair to note the number of long balls he played last season in comparison to the other three suggests his instructions and the team plan was different.
The deals
What seems clear at this stage is that Brynn will face better competition next season in the form of a new goalkeeper arrival.
Taking the sentimental element of Brynn’s Teesside roots out of the equation, the above highlights why, with Boro’s promotion ambitions in mind, they have to be ruthless.
That doesn’t have to be a bad thing for Brynn. While the above compares the four keepers’ past performances, what truly matters is the future.
If Brynn steps up his game in light of new, and more credible, competition, him staying as first choice should not be ruled out.
In terms of who the keeper he competes with next season is, that likely depends on the deals that are available to Boro.
The talks with Manchester United over Vitek were over a potential permanent move, which, as a general rule, is always the preferred priority for Boro.
But proving they’re not adverse to using the loan market when necessary, that explains why alternative options exist in Travers and Van Oevelen.
Talks between Manchester United and Boro hadn’t progressed over Vitek, but if United’s demands are too high, Boro will consider that they need some budget to spend on other areas of the squad too.
In Travers and Van Oevelen, they have solid alternatives if they can convince them on the move to Boro in light of undoubted competition.
Middlesbrough are preparing for a big summer as they look to rebuild from the heartarche of missing out on promotion to the Premier League.
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