The Tier Lists - Goalkeeper Edition - GDS Football
- Zonald Baison
- Jul 24
- 5 min read
Welcome to the first positional tier list for GDS’ Football platform. In these tier lists we’ll rank the GDS options suitable to build your lineups for the 2025/26 season. The first edition is on goalkeepers.
SUPERSTARS
Unsurprising that we see the top three goalkeepers for clean sheets in the Premier League for 2024/25, in Pickford, Raya and Sels in this tier. The final spot of the highest tier is filled by Alisson, Liverpool’s goalkeeper who, despite injury during the season, still managed to finish equal seventh for clean sheets. Liverpool were also the team with the most clean sheets in the league.
In terms of other goalkeeping related stats Pickford (3rd) and Sels (4th) both appeared in the top five for saves with 121 and 120 respectively, whilst Raya (14th) and Alisson (16th) had 86 and 78 respectively. Save percentages were very similar as the four keepers were within a 2.5% range of one another, David Raya led the way with 74.2 (which was third for the league). Raya also led the way in terms of goals conceded per match with his 0.89 and was the only goalkeeper, who played a minimum of 10 matches, to be below 1.00. Alisson (1.04), Pickford (1.16) and Sels (1.21) were all in the top 10 for those with the same minimum games applied.
All four superstar tier goalkeepers are more than suitable starting options heading into the new season. Alisson (presuming his recent injury history doesn’t repeat) and Raya continue to be part of leading teams with high level defenders, resulting in a decent portion of their scoring coming from clean sheets. On the other hand Pickford and Sels have proved their capabilities as shot stoppers who are expected to be far more vulnerable in defence, opening up further avenues to score in the GDS system.
BALLERS
All four players’ teams in this tier featured in the top 10 for clean sheets in 2024/25, including two being in the top five (Man City and Newcastle). Interestingly, most of these options (bar Dean Henderson) have a reason that makes them unappealing and could be the reason why they don’t feature in the superstar tier.
Ederson struggled with both injury and patchy form, which led to him being unused on the bench four times as he featured in 26 games. There are transfer rumours swirling around, as well as the potential of Ortega being preferred to him leading into the new season. Perhaps even James Trafford will end up replacing him back at City?
Speaking of transfer rumours, Emiliano Martinez has been rumored to be out of Villa the entirety of the transfer window so far, however, depending on the team he moves to, he could become an even more appealing option.
Nick Pope had his own injury troubles as he missed the middle part of the season with a knee issue, playing in 28 games total. Pope did make it back to finish the season and in a top five team like Newcastle he was very close to being moved up a tier.
In terms of clean sheets Henderson managed 11 in his 38 games and Martinez 8 in 37, however it was the injury affected Pope and Ederson who impressed most with 8 in 28 and 10 in 26 respectively. Henderson (104) and Martinez (100) were both in the top 10 for saves made, while Pope (88) and Ederson (54) were a way off in their limited action. Pope (1.25), Martinez (1.27) and Henderson (1.34) were all similar in their goals conceded per match, while Ederson finished second with 1.00.
There is merit in selecting from this tier, however each of these players and their situations need to be monitored. If Pope and Ederson maintain their spots as number one they, in particular, will be close to the output of the superstar tier goalkeepers.
UNIQUES
Moving onto the unique tier, in most cases it is their current situation that means they can be no further up the tier list than as a favorable fixture option. All of these keepers have shown the capabilities of being decent scorers in GDS, however it is usually their defence and team that make them unreliable. All of these players should be or will continue being the number one option at their respective clubs.
Petrovic and Kelleher make for two of the more intriguing options in this tier as they are both at new clubs. Kelleher has made his way across from current champions Liverpool, while Petrovic comes from Chelsea, having been on loan for Strasbourg in France last season. In his 10 games, during Alisson’s injury spell, Kelleher managed four clean sheets, 27 saves and conceded 1.20 goals per match (ranking him equal sixth for goalkeepers with 10 or more starts). Petrovic had 10 clean sheets (=3rd in Ligue 1), 111 saves (7th) and conceded 1.23 goals per match in his 31 games.
Leno (5), Verbruggen (7) and Vicario (4) didn’t quite meet the heights of the higher ranked Premier League keepers for clean sheets, albeit Vicario only played 24 games due to injury. They also conceded much more too with 1.42 (per game) for Leno, 1.61 for Verbruggen and 1.54 for Vicario. Leno led the way, between the three, for saves with 109, while Verbruggen had 91 and Vicario an impressive 68.
James Trafford continues with Burnley… for now anyway. He played a total of 45 games in the English second tier where he made 85 saves (from 103 on shots on target against him), kept a total of 29 clean sheets, made two penalty saves from two faced and had only 0.36 goals against per game. What a season.
Petrovic, Kelleher and Trafford are potential bargain options at new teams or in new leagues, who could move to a new level and match those in higher tiers, while with the others you know what you’re getting. With more games and a new manager Vicario could have an upwards trajectory if you’re willing to risk the Spurs defence improving (which they should, barring further injuries to it).
RISING STARS
This tier includes a list of very talented, but most likely backup keepers. While some of this list did manage games in this league last season (Bayindir, Kinsky, Jorgensen and Valdimarsson) others plied their trade elsewhere and are new. Of the list the most likely to either overtake their current number one or get games at some stage would be Jorgensen. There are multiple others who are capable of being a Premier League number one immediately (Kinsky, Marmardashvili), but their situations make it more unlikely than Jorgensen to play. Jorgensen is potentially still behind Robert Sanchez at Chelsea, however that could change as early as the opening game of the season.
That’s my tier list of goalkeepers! A mix of opinion, stats and logic go into these tier lists. There’ll be differing opinions out there and other suitable stats I haven’t included, which could argue alternative rankings, however hopefully these lists help all GDS coaches of all experience levels build their teams on the new Football platform.
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