So over the years, the best goalkeeper in the game of soccer have always been rated by the number of clean sheets accumulated every season rather than the number of saves made the whole season. Yes it means a lot to not concede goals; most especially when you concede less than any other keeper in the competition in question. I have a rather different view to this.
We have always complained of Goals and Assists being what is used to rate Cristiano Ronaldo and Loniel Messi as the best players in the world in the past 10 yrs, that people who play other positions should be considered especially midfielders as they do a lot of the creativity. Finally the gods of soccer heard our cry and in my own opinion a little bit of sentiments help Luka Modric claim the prestigious accolade. That isn't the issue at hand, maybe I will discuss that in another write-up.
Back to the topic at hand, we might say the goal keepers at the lower rated team will be the ones scooping the award every year if saves is used. By the way in my opinion saves should be considered first, then number of goals conceded and finally clean sheets, with reasons that the former two, the defense should get credit for this too and not just the keeper as most times, he isn't even kept busy the whole match. Yes the keepers in the lower rated teams get to be busy most times because the better team will be making attempts as expected and pushing him into making lots of saves in a single match, while the keeper in the better team could face only one chance and concede or face no chance at all and gets a clean sheet to his name, then when the best keeper is being announced; because he conceded no goal, or less goals,that of the better team gets the award while the other in the lower team doesn't just because he conceded 3 or 5 goals, the 10 saves he made, that stopped the match from getting to 13-0 isn't considered.
In my opinion, as stated earlier, the ability to make saves when kept busy, make successful run outs, have a nice ball distribution should be considered first when rating goalkeepers or considering them for awards as clean sheets and goals conceded is being used as these two are a collective Job of the goalkeeper and defenders not his alone. Please get me right, I am not saying clean sheet and conceding less number of goals should not be used, but rather they shouldn't be considered first or as the only option.
You are free to share your views below.