Analytics Report: Premier League Player Of The Week – Matchday 13 – Dean Henderson

After a remarkable performance against Liverpool, Dean Henderson is our player of the week from matchday 13 of the Premier League. Nottingham Forest played well but did end up giving Liverpool a lot of chances to score, but Henderson kept the Reds at bay.

Skipper Ryan Yates was also a potential pick, but without Henderson in goal, Forest wouldn’t have even got the point, let alone all three.

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Here we have a chart of Henderson’s key statistics from the game against Liverpool.

Henderson faced 7 shots against Liverpool and saved all of them registering a 100% save completion. Impressively, 6 out of the 7 saves were against shots taken from inside the box. The post-shot xG recorded in the game was 1.5, as he also covered an average sweeper distance of 12.8. The former United keeper also registered 9 carries and 4 recoveries.

Here is a chart of Henderson’s saves map from the game against Liverpool.

Liverpool’s xG against Forest on Saturday was 2.2, which shows the significance of Henderson’s performance. Despite an xG of 2.2, the away side were restricted to no goals. This tells us that the defence was not as great, and without Henderson’s saves, Forest would have lost all the points against Liverpool.

The save he made against Van Dijk’s header in the dying minutes of the game was exceptional. Of course, the header could have been much better, but the way Henderson got down and got his hand on the ball was sensational. He kept making big saves, and his presence from set pieces was also massive for the home side.

Even Jurgen Klopp admitted after the game that Liverpool had clear chances to finish the game, but he didn’t know how they missed them. And a massive part of the reason for that was Henderson’s excellence in goal.

With the World Cup getting closer, there is strong competition for England’s starting goalkeeper position, as all of the contenders are in great form. Ramsdale, Pickford, and Pope are having great seasons, but Henderson, who looked out of the conversation a few weeks ago, has been outstanding at Forest.

These kinds of performances will put more pressure on Southgate as he now has to pick three out of four keepers who are in top form.

Jurgen Klopp On The Chances Liverpool Had Against Forest

After their defeat against Forest, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said, “Who can we blame for not finishing the situations off? There are not a lot of people we can blame. Just us. It is a big blow for us because we came here and we wanted to get the three points. In normal circumstances, we should have won this game, but we didn’t.”