Manchester City’s Ederson is Special

When Manchester City signed Ederson from Benfica back in July 2017, little was known about the player.

However since then he has been at the forefront of bringing into the Premier League a new style of goalkeeping, which has changed the way we all think about goalkeeping. Traditionally goalkeepers were tall men, not afraid to come running out of their area at the feet of a centre forward. Their role was to stop shots which were on target. When they received the ball, they generally hoofed the ball as far upfield as possible.

Ederson though is a different breed. He has already proven that he can undertake some of these traditional goalkeeping duties well if called upon. He can leap across his area and turn shots around the post. He is brave enough to wilfully rush out to meet an attacker and dive at their feet. But crucially under Guardiola neither of these attributes are seen as the primary duties of the goalkeeper.

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Under Guardiola, if a goalkeeper has to save a goal bound shot or rush out to thwart an attacker, then it is because of a failure of the team ahead of him. So most of the Guardiola coaching is about preventing those failures through ball possession and creation of opportunity. In thsi system the primary function of the goalkeeper is markedly different.

Ederson is expected to start the play by retaining possession. He is expected to interlink with players through passing to keep the ball in rotation and to seek to break up the defensive lines of the opposition by stretching the play. This requires some additional skills in the goalkeeping skill set and boy, does Ederson possess these.

He has to have the ability to control and pass the ball under pressure. This is never about a kick and a hope. He must always be accurate to exploit the play. In addition he has the ability through vision – a skill most usually associated with creative midfielders- to open the play up. To genuinely switch defence to attack.

Just this week against Watford, he undertook 2 extreme examples of this. Both times he successfully flummoxed the attackers by completing no look passes to his own team, to escape the press. This is a Ronaldinho level skill in ball playing.

Of course, as well as this he has a certain maverick sensibility. He likes to wonder. He gets bored on the pitch being isolated from the play so wants to ensure he is involved. He regularly seems to cross the half way line. Not in the 90th minute when going up for a corner in search of a late equaliser, but simply to add an extra man in the passing patterns, to stretch the play.

Ederson is exactly the keeper Guardiola needed. What another fantastic example of player recruitment by Manchester City.  Even better is the fact he is under contract until 30 June 2025. This all means we will continue to enjoy the extreme play of the coolest goalkeeper on the planet for years to come.