Pep´s lightbulb moment? Why Guardiola thinks Ederson can solve his keeper woes

Pep Guardiola will hope Ederson can solve his goalkeeping conundrum after Manchester City confirmed the completion of the Brazilian’s €40million move from Benfica.

It is a problem largely of Guardiola’s making, after he jettisoned long-serving number one Joe Hart at the start of last season, with the England international joining Torino on loan after Claudio Bravo swapped Barcelona for Manchester.

Bravo’s introduction to English football proved to be infamously torrid and he lost his place to Hart’s former understudy Willy Caballero before a calf injury curtailed a return to the first team.

Set against the three other senior goalkeepers on City’s books – Caballero will leave when his contract expires at the end of this month – Ederson’s efforts in Benfica’s 2016-17 title-winning campaign stack up very well.

A total of 56 saves and 12 goals conceded gives him a save percentage of 82.35, a comfortably better return than Caballero (70.45 per cent) and Hart (62.87 per cent), while Bravo conceded 26 goals, set against 33 saves, to leave his percentage dwindling at 55.93.

22 – Since his Benfica debut (Mar 2016), no GK has kept more clean sheets in the Portuguese Primeira Liga than Ederson Moraes (22). Citizen. pic.twitter.com/Z8aY6FKaOd

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) June 1, 2017

Ederson played 27 matches compared to 22 and 17 for Bravo and Caballero respectively, which goes some way towards explaining his higher number of saves.

A year at Torino meant busy work for Hart and he leads this metric with 105 stops in 36 matches, while the 30-year-old also has the lowest minutes-per-save figure of the quartet on 30.9.

But Hart comes off worst in terms of minutes per goal conceded (52.3), while Ederson was only breached every 198.4 minutes, coming in easily better off than Bravo (75.7) and Caballero (111.6) once more.

Ederson’s clean sheet tally of 17 is more than the other three put together, Caballero chalking up six shutouts with Hart and Bravo on five apiece.

According to Opta data, Ederson, Bravo and Caballero all made one error leading directly to a goal last season. Hart has the dubious distinction of coming out on top in this category, with his mistakes costing Torino on five occasions.

5 – Joe Hart has made five errors leading to goals in Serie A this season; only Josip Posavec (7) has made more. Baptism.

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 15, 2017