Given Liverpool already have one of the world’s best goalkeepers in Alisson, why are they spending around £30m on Valencia and Georgia number one Giorgi Mamardashvili?
The shortest and simplest response to the question as to why Liverpool are buying Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia is succession planning.
The expectation is that the Georgia number one, who starred at Euro 2024 this summer, will sign for Liverpool before the transfer window closes next week – for a reported fee in the region of £30 million – and will then be loaned back to Spain for at least one season. There is no suggestion that Alisson’s spot as first-choice at Anfield is under threat.
For now.
Liverpool have simply decided that the opportunity to sign Mamardashvili, 23, was one they couldn’t let up. At 31, Alisson is hardly old for a goalkeeper and could feasibly play at the top level for another five years, but he may also have had some thoughts that, having won it all at Liverpool, he might want to try something new at some stage.
From Liverpool’s perspective, their goalkeeper suffered a few uncharacteristic injury problems last season, and – perhaps as a consequence of those injuries, or perhaps even a sign of regression – his numbers suggest he was less effective with his shot-stopping than in previous campaigns.
Using Opta’s expected goals on target (xGOT) model, we can look at how many goals the average goalkeeper would be expected to concede from a set of shots on target they face. With that value and the number of goals the goalkeeper actually conceded (excluding own goals), we can work out how many goals they prevented.
After overperforming in 2022-23 more than any other goalkeeper in the Premier League bar Fulham’s Bernd Leno – with 10.5 goals prevented (41 goals conceded from 51.5 xGOT) – Alisson conceded goals almost exactly at the ‘average’ rate in 2023-24 (29 goals conceded from 28.97 xGOT).
Last season was the first since 2019-20 that he has failed to outperform his xGOT numbers.
It may be that Liverpool’s hierarchy are protecting themselves against the possibility that this is the first step in Alisson’s regression.
And in Mamardashvili they are getting a real talent.
When it comes to shot-stopping and preventing goals, there are few in Europe currently operating at a higher level than the Georgian.
In La Liga last season, the Valencia keeper prevented 11.3 goals, conceding just 39 goals from 50.3 xGOT. That was the best rate in the Spanish top flight, and the third-best in Europe’s top five leagues, behind Monza’s Michele Di Gregorio (12.3) and Paris Saint-Germain’s Gianluigi Donnarumma (11.5).
Then, in the summer, he shone for Georgia at Euro 2024, saving 30 of the 38 shots on target he faced, and ultimately making at least 12 more saves than anyone else at the tournament. His 21 saves in the group stage is the joint-highest by a goalkeeper in any European Championship group stage on record (since 1980).
He topped the charts for goals prevented too, with eight goals conceded from 12.7 xGOT, meaning he prevented 4.7 goals more than the average goalkeeper would have.
Now, one issue with the goals prevented metric is that it often favours goalkeepers who face a lot of shots. With more shots to deal with, they have more opportunities to ‘prevent’ goals.
But we can guard against this problem by using something called goals prevented rate. This is calculated by taking expected goals on target (how many goals the average goalkeeper ‘should’ concede) and dividing that figure by goals conceded (how many the goalkeeper actually conceded). Goals prevented rate then tells us the number of goals the average goalkeeper would concede for every goal the goalkeeper in question actually concedes.
Mamardashvili’s goals prevented rate of 1.29 suggests that for every goal he conceded, the average goalkeeper would have conceded 1.29 goals. That might not sound like much, but over the course of a season it makes a big difference; for every 10 goals he let in, another average goalkeeper would concede 13.
Ranking all goalkeepers for goals prevented rate sees Mamardashvili drop down the list slightly, though – he was third in La Liga and ninth in Europe’s top five leagues (minimum 1,000 minutes played). That suggests his overperformance compared to his xGOT was in some way down to the volume of shots he faced.
Which brings us nicely on to an obvious next question. Liverpool are far more dominant than both Valencia and Georgia, so will Mamardashvili be able to make the stylistic leap up to playing at the top end of the Premier League?
When it comes to facing shots, there may not be a huge amount of adjusting to do. Despite Liverpool (61.3%) averaging much more possession in league games last season than Valencia (43.6%), the Reds only allowed their opponents 13 fewer shots on target than Mamardashvili’s side. As a result, he might be just as busy when it comes to keeping the ball out of the net.
However, with more of the ball comes more responsibility with his feet, and that would be the area where there’d be the biggest step up.
Valencia manager Rubén Baraja doesn’t like his team taking risks when playing out from the back. They play lots of long balls up to Hugo Duro, an aggressive, hard-working forward with a good jump on him, with the aim of winning flick-ons to find the younger, faster, more technical wingers.
Only five players played more long balls (more than 32m) in La Liga last season than Mamardashvili (717), and only four ranked higher for proportion of passes sent long (64.7%). You won’t need telling that that isn’t how Liverpool played under Jürgen Klopp, nor will it be how they play under Arne Slot.
A comparison of the teams’ approaches to taking goal-kicks illustrates the difference in style nicely.
In league games last season, just 21% of Valencia’s goal-kicks ended inside the penalty area – the sixth-lowest proportion in La Liga – and 70% were played outside their own defensive third. Even fewer ended inside their own box when Mamardashvili was taking them.
At Liverpool, meanwhile, 57% of their goal-kicks ended inside their own box – the sixth-highest proportion in the Premier League.
It’s only been one game and it was against newly promoted Ipswich, but in that game 75% of Liverpool’s goal-kicks ended inside their own box, which might be a sign of things to come.
Although there are some important caveats (which we’ll come on to), some of Mamardashvili’s numbers at Euro 2024 suggest he isn’t entirely comfortable on the ball. His pass completion rate in Germany was just 53.1%, largely because he went long so much, but tellingly, that dropped to 27.8% when he was under pressure (an opponent within four metres). He completed just five of his 18 pass attempts when being put under pressure by an opponent.
Of course, launching the ball up the field for Georgia so often, his success rate depended more on his teammate winning an aerial battle than the accuracy of his pass. But equally, there’s no denying that playing for Liverpool, under pressure more consistently and forced to play short passes when under pressure, will take some getting used to.
Mamardashvili hasn’t had enough opportunity to show what he can do with the ball at his feet – either for club or country – for us to be able to judge him properly. It’s clearly a stylistic decision on his managers’ part rather than necessarily an indication of a weakness in his game, but the fact is that at Anfield, he’ll need to learn a very new way of playing and that could take some time.
That said, Liverpool will be getting a very talented young goalkeeper with bags of potential, and they are in the favourable position of being able to wait and see if they even need him down the line. It might be that Alisson plays on at Anfield for years to come.
But just in case he doesn’t, Liverpool are getting their house in order and Mamardashvili could become a very shrewd signing.
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