Perhaps our surprise of the season so far is the emergence of Alphonse Areola as our first choice goal keeper.
After nearly two years understudying Lukasz Fabianski, he really has grasped his opportunity in a big way.
Areola
His metrics make good reading too as shown below:
According to Opta; In the four games he has played, he has saved 20 shots which were on target
One penalty kick (against Chelsea)
Which all equates to a more than useful 80% successful save rate
Just as importantly his distribution figures are demonstrably better than Fabianski
71 goal kicks or throws with a 62.5% accuracy. It is worth remembering that the Premier League median average is 53%
I think with the case of all goalkeepers, it is all about confidence and Alphonse is brimming with it at the moment.
On top of all that of course he has – as we reported earlier – been nominated for the save of August at Brighton.