Top-level club football has long been considered a squad game. The quality of a team’s backup players is often a decisive factor — and that’s assuming there even is a clear differentiation between first-teamers and backups.
However, there was something unusual about the three Premier League title contenders’ games last weekend — they all used their second-choice goalkeeper. Arsenal were forced to play Aaron Ramsdale, with David Raya ineligible against his parent club Brentford, Liverpool were using Caoimhin Kelleher, with Alisson out injured, and when Ederson limped off midway through the second half, Manchester City summoned Stefan Ortega from the bench.
How common are backup goalkeepers in successful Premier League title charges? Here’s a short history of Premier League-winning goalkeepers and how they have often been decisive.
In the early years of the Premier League, the second-choice goalkeeper simply wasn’t a major feature of title-winning sides. They were almost routinely unglamorous, English backups who no one considered a serious challenger to the No 1, and the recent trend of goalkeepers playing in the cup competitions was also largely unfamiliar. In the first Premier League season, 1992-93, Manchester United’s Peter Schmeichel played every available minute in the league.
The next season, Schmeichel didn’t quite complete another ever-present campaign. Gary Walsh was an academy product and a perennial understudy to Schmeichel. He’s most famous for starting in the 4-0 defeat at Barcelona in the 1994-95 Champions League group stage when Sir Alex Ferguson decided he was better off using his three designated foreign player slots on outfielders. Walsh was also charitably allowed to play in the last two and a half games of the 1993-94 title-winning campaign, once things had already been wrapped up but, in reality, he was not needed.
Gary Walsh’s appearance for Manchester United in Barcelona did not go well (Tony Marshall – PA Images via Getty Images)
The following season, when Blackburn Rovers won the league, Tim Flowers’ understudy Bobby Mimms was more of a factor. When Blackburn visited Leeds in early January, Flowers was dismissed after just 95 seconds for bringing down Brian Deane, earning himself a three-game ban. Mimms, who had previously been Blackburn’s first-choice goalkeeper and kept more clean sheets than anyone else in the inaugural Premier League campaign, replaced him — but at this stage, players needed to make 10 appearances to earn a Premier League medal. Mimms, along with David Batty, Alan Wright and Richard Witschge, didn’t receive one, having only played four games.
In the 1997-98 season, Alex Manninger played a genuinely crucial role in Arsenal’s first title success under Arsene Wenger, performing particularly well in the crucial 1-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford when deputising for David Seaman.
Alex Manninger was an able deputy for David Seaman in the 1997-98 season (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)
That was his sixth start — and his sixth clean sheet — as Arsenal went on a brilliant run in the spring. Such was Manninger’s good form that when Seaman returned from injury for a home game against Sheffield Wednesday, Manninger walked into the dressing room, jokingly sat down in Seaman’s spot and asked him what the problem was. Although Manninger fell short of the 10 appearances required for a medal, he was allowed special dispensation to receive one — helped by the fact he had been named Premier League Player of the Month for March 1998.
In the period between Schmeichel’s departure in 1999 and Fabian Barthez’s arrival in 2000, Manchester United had serious problems in goal. It didn’t stop them from winning the league, but Ferguson installed Mark Bosnich, Raimond van der Gouw (who won the title twice as an understudy) and the error-prone Italian Massimo Taibi at various points.
There was also room for a fourth goalkeeper and the most gloriously short Premier League title contribution on record — when Manchester United beat Arsenal 2-1 at Highbury thanks to two Roy Keane goals, backup goalkeeper Nick Culkin was introduced in the final minute because of an injury to Van der Gouw. He thumped a free kick forward, and the whistle blew for full time. His single minute in that 1999-2000 season is barely detectable on the graph below.
Manchester United also used four goalkeepers the following season. Barthez was the first choice and Van der Gouw also played a fair amount, but Paul Rachubka started in a 2-0 win over Leicester when Barthez was injured in the warm-up, and there was also a peculiar late loan spell for eccentric 37-year-old Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram. He was signed as cover for injuries but started two matches when United had already wrapped up the title. Unusually, he was substituted off in both of them as Ferguson gave others a runout.
Continuing this strange era of backup goalkeeping, in their 2001-02 title-winning season, Arsenal used three goalkeepers roughly equally because of injury. Seaman appeared in 17 games, Richard Wright 12 and Stuart Taylor 10 — all three, therefore, received a medal.
Later came what might be considered the ‘professionalisation’ of backup goalkeepers. Tomasz Kuszczak played four title-winning campaigns between 2006 and 2011 as an understudy to Edwin van der Sar at Manchester United, always playing a handful of games.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s Carlo Cudicini was considered one of the Premier League’s best goalkeepers in 2004. Petr Cech arrived that summer and went on to win four titles as Chelsea’s No 1 but Cudicini remained at the club for the next five years, appearing sporadically in the league.
Lenny Pidgeley, the third choice, also played a couple of times — eight minutes in 2004-05, as a charitable runout once the title was wrapped up. He was on the pitch to see Claude Makelele turn home a rebound from his own penalty in a 1-0 win over Charlton. He was then afforded the whole game on the final day of the following season. For Chelsea’s next league title, in 2009-10, Cech remained first choice, but Carlo Ancelotti also had to turn to Hilario, when Cech was sent off in a 3-1 loss at Wigan Athletic and suspended for one game. When Cech and Hilario were injured later in the season, Ross Turnbull played a couple of games, too. In 2014-15, Cech found himself as the backup to Thibaut Courtois.
Turnbull replaces Hilario during Chelsea’s FA Cup game with Bolton in the 2009-10 season (Rebecca Naden/PA Images via Getty Images)
In the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons, there were periods when the eventual title-winning goalkeeper was genuinely displaced from the starting XI. David de Gea had a poor run of form at Manchester United, meaning Anders Lindegaard was briefly preferred. The following campaign at Manchester City, Joe Hart was also dropped, with towering Romanian Costel Pantilimon selected instead.
But that hasn’t happened since. The title-winning backups since — Asmir Begovic (Chelsea), Claudio Bravo (Manchester City), Adrian (Liverpool), Zack Steffen and Ortega (both Manchester City) — have never put forward a serious case to become No 1. Manchester City’s perennial third-choice goalkeeper Scott Carson also deserves a mention — he played 90 minutes in May 2021’s 4-3 win over Newcastle United, a decade after his previous Premier League appearance for West Bromwich Albion and almost 16 years after he won the Champions League with Liverpool (albeit without appearing in the final).
Scott Carson’s 146th and possibly final Premier League appearance, in May 2021 (Peter Powell/PA Images via Getty Images)
The reliance of this season’s title challengers on their backup goalkeepers is interesting because they’re all in completely different situations — essentially, the three different types of backup goalkeepers.
Kelleher is a developing academy product — 25 is fairly young in goalkeeping terms — who has moved above Adrian in the pecking order. It has taken a while for Kelleher to prove his capability but he has made some excellent saves in recent weeks and now seems like a particularly strong No 2. It’s questionable whether he’ll ever make the transition to Liverpool’s first-choice goalkeeper, and if he wants to become a regular, he may have to move elsewhere. If he does, Liverpool can expect a decent fee for him.
Ramsdale has been displaced as No 1, which is inevitably a difficult transition — especially considering he performed so impressively last season that he was voted into the PFA Team of the Year. David Raya was signed as much because of his style as his quality, particularly in terms of his distribution. This wasn’t previously considered a major weakness in Ramsdale’s game but his weekend error, being caught on the ball by Yoane Wissa for Brentford’s equaliser, strengthens Raya’s claim to be No 1, as did Raya’s tie-winning performance in Arsenal’s midweek Champions League game with Porto.
And then there’s Ortega, signed specifically to be a backup goalkeeper. He’s primarily played in the cup competitions, including throughout City’s victorious FA Cup run last season. Although probably not as physically commanding as Ederson, he’s assured with his feet and a good shot-stopper, making a crucial save from Darwin Nunez at the weekend. With Ederson likely to be out for a few weeks through an injury sustained by bringing down Nunez for the penalty at the weekend, Ortega suddenly has a crucial role to play.
Regardless of the eventual champion, we can be sure that each of the three has contributed significantly. Even Ramsdale, set to play just six league games this season and guilty of that error on Saturday, atoned well with two excellent second-half saves.
Investing in a solid backup goalkeeper can sometimes be a waste of money if they’re not needed all season. More often than not, however, they have a part to play.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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