Premier League Stopper of the Season: Tom Heaton

Heroic Heaton – skysports.com

When you face more shots than any other team in your division, you normally need a good goalkeeper. Burnley let their opponents have on average 18.1 efforts per game according to WhoScored, 0.1 more than Sunderland.

The Black Cats have Jordan Pickford, who is the league’s only regular goalkeeper to have made more saves per game (4.6) than Burnley’s Tom Heaton (4.2). Pickford, although talented, has been unable to halt Sunderland’s plummet towards the Championship, yet Heaton has been crucial for the Clarets.

The two goalkeepers excelled in a 0-0 draw on Saturday, with Heaton’s fine display preserving his seventh clean sheet of the campaign. That is the same number Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet have combined to reach with fourth-placed Liverpool, who theoretically have attacking tools to curb the opposition’s goalscoring strategies.

Although Burnley have been hard to break down at home, they generally face teams who are probing for goals, not content with a point. That was the case against Manchester United away and Everton at home in back-to-back October games which saw the East Lancashire side steal four points.

Over January, he faced top six sides in Arsenal and Manchester City yet conceded just four goals in four games. That month saw him keep clean sheets against Leicester and Southampton, making a string of wonderful saves when facing the latter.

Burnley have conceded fewer goals than any bottom half side bar Middlesbrough. It would be wrong to put that down entirely to Heaton, because the team has been a nightmare to play against at Turf Moor. However, when the usual defensive structure has been absent, Heaton often comes to the rescue.