It is obviously important to have a good goalkeeper if you wish to win football matches. But should you have two? This is the question I wanted to take a look at today. It’s something that has caught my eye before which got spurred on (pun intended) by transfer news today.

Spurs have signed 21-year old Czech youth international Antonín Kinský from Slavia Prague today. If you looked him up and are now wondering why Wikipedia says he’s 49, that’s due to his father sharing the same name and profession. In the Czech league this year, the younger Kinský was covering himself in glory, holding the highest save percentage across Europe’s Top 10 leagues, as well as looking mighty confident in build-up with the ball at his feet. The intent of the club with this signing is for Kinský to compete with Guglielmo Vicario for the club’s #1 keeper role, rather than be a set backup right from the start. This is what made me think of similar instances, most notably coming to mind the Alisson/Kelleher duo at Liverpool, or Arsenals’ Raya/Ramsdale duo last season. So lets take a look at what the pros and cons seem to be of having pair of “starting” keepers.

In the case of Liverpool, it seems to have been almost entirely beneficial keeping two quality keepers at the club. However, I’m not sure how much of Liverpool’s ability to do this was due to Kelleher not demanding a move. That’s the thing with this situation, you have to get a bit lucky with both keepers wanting to stay and compete with each other. They’re professional athletes who want to play football, it makes sense that a move to become a first-choice keeper again would appeal to whichever of the two ends up getting less playing time. In Liverpool’s case, the age gap between Alisson and Kelleher has helped, as with 6 years’ less experience than his Brazilian counterpart, it is perhaps easier for Kelleher to accept being the “backup” unless Alisson gets injured.

Now in Arsenal’s case, it seemed to not work as well long term. When David Raya was brought in from Brentford, Mikel Arteta said that he had two #1 keepers now, and that they would be competing for the starting spot. How much truth there was in this statement, I’m not sure, because very quickly into the season David Raya was starting near every game, and Ramsdale was already looking at summer transfers. Arteta couldn’t satisfy both keepers with enough playing time but he also might have personally considered Ramsdale the backup to Raya, and just said otherwise to the press. Raya is three years older than Ramsdale, who is 26, so I can see why Ramsdale might not have wanted to stick around to be Raya’s backup.

So it seems obvious that having two starting keepers is better than one, but the downside to this is how difficult it is to KEEP two starting-quality keepers for more than one or two seasons. That’s not to mention keeping both keepers happy. The arrival of a new keeper to compete for the starting role could damage the original starting keeper’s confidence. What happens with Vicario and Kinsky at Spurs will have to be seen. My guess is that for the next season or two they will compete for the #1 role, and then if Vicario wins the starting role, Kinsky is more likely to accept less play-time without requesting a transfer due to his age. Vicario is 7 years older than Kinsky, which is similar to the Alisson/Kelleher age gap. If all goes ideally, the competition will make both Kinsky and Vicario play better, then when the older of the two keepers moves on from Spurs, Kinsky will be very much in his prime to take over.

Think about what you’d prefer at your team! A clear #1 and #2 keeper tandem, or this #1a and #1b duo that we are starting to see more teams target in recruitment. There’s no one correct answer.

Cheers,

LM