Stats suggest that Matz Sels wasn’t the answer to Forest’s goalkeeping woes
It was hardly a surprise when Matt Turner was replaced by Nottingham Forest at midseason.
The U.S. men’s national team goalkeeper had plenty of chances to establish himself as the starter at Forest, but a series of high-profile errors eventually became too much for manager Nuno Espírito Santo to bear.
Forest signed Matz Sels from Strasbourg in February, and the Belgium international immediately stepped in as the club’s starter.
After Sels arrived, Turner didn’t play again in the Premier League, and made just two FA Cup appearances the remainder of the 2023-24 season.
Sels appeared to do an admirable enough job replacing the U.S. men’s national team starter, avoiding the kind of calamitous errors his predecessor made while helping guide Forest to Premier League safety.
But a look at the numbers (all stats via FBref) shows that in some ways, Sels was actually a downgrade on Turner. Sels started 16 Premier League games while Turner started 17, so we have basically an equal body of work to compare.
The keepers also had nearly identical league records as starters, with Forest at 4W-4D-8L under Sels and 4W-5D-8L under Turner.
When it comes to the “goals prevented” stat — one of the most significant indicators of a goalkeeper’s ability to stop shots — Turner was significantly better than Sels. Though we should clarify: neither was very good!
Sels has a goals prevented of -7.8, the second-worst mark in the entire division. Turner came in at -5.9. Essentially, Sels cost his team two more goals than Turner.
In the more standard stat of save percentage, Turner is also ahead 67.5% to 57.4%.
When it comes to cutting out crosses, Turner stopped 10.1% of those into his box compared to just 4.9% for Sels. The Belgian’s poor command of his box is also shown by his concession of nine goals from corner kicks, compared to four for Turner.
What about distribution, which has seemingly been Turner’s Achilles heel? Both goalkeepers have nearly identical passing percentages when it comes to short and medium-range passes, while Turner is actually ahead 49.1% to 45% in long-range passing.
There is one area where Sels was superior, which won’t come as a major surprise: Turner made three errors leading to a goal, while the Belgian made only one, per stats from the Premier League. FBref has Turner at four errors leading to an opponent’s shot, compared to one for Sels.
What does this all mean? The stats seem to confirm the eye test with Turner: cut out the major mistakes, and there’s still a decent goalkeeper in there somewhere.
Regardless of some areas of superiority to Sels, it seems unlikely that Turner will ever get his job back at Forest. If the USMNT shot-stopper wants to avoid spending the better part of next season on the bench, he’ll probably have to find another new club in the summer.
For Nottingham Forest, though, it doesn’t look like signing Sels was the solution to its goalkeeping woes that it may have hoped.
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