New Aston Villa head coach Carla Ward put her stamp on the club’s goalkeeping union yesterday with the addition of England international goalkeeper Hannah Hampton.
The 20-year-old played for Ward at former club Birmingham City last season and is regarded as one of the best up and coming goalkeepers in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
The move now means that Aston Villa have three goalkeepers in their squad with German Lisa Weiss and 2019/2020 FA Women’s Championship promotion-winner Sian Rogers also on the books at The Banks’s Stadium. With Hampton being a Ward signing and with the player having been on a real journey with her boss last season, she is likely to be Villa’s number one this term but how does she compare to Weiss and Rogers? FA Women’s Super League Full-Time have taken a look at the 2020/2021 statistics of the three goalkeepers to determine how they performed.
Hampton was the only one of the three goalkeepers to be an ever-present for her club in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League last season, however, she made the same number of appearances as Weiss (21) as a result of Birmingham City’s cancelled away fixture at Tottenham Hotspur. Rogers started the season in goal for Aston Villa but a couple of individual mistakes against Manchester City in the club’s 2-0 opening day defeat at Villa Park resulted in Weiss taking the jersey.
In terms of clean sheets, Weiss came out top in 2020/2021 with six (she kept a clean sheet in 28.6% of her games) while Hampton kept four (she shut out the opposition in 19% of her games). Both keepers faced penalty kicks in 2020/2021 with Hampton saving two out of three and Weiss stopping one of five.
Weiss was the second most-beaten goalkeeper in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League last season, conceding 45 goals in 21 games (2.14 goals per game) while Hampton conceded 44 goals in 21 outings (2.10 goals per game). Villa’s back-up keeper Rogers came out on top conceding two goals per game, however, she made just a solitary league appearance.
Of the three goalkeepers, Hampton had the greatest save percentage last season (65.9%) while Weiss was second (64.3%). Rogers did not make a save in Aston Villa’s 2-0 home defeat to Manchester City. In terms of overall Barclays FA Women’s Super League save percentage records in 2020/2021, Hampton was ranked as the league’s sixth best while Weiss was tenth.
Looking at more in-depth goalkeeping statistics, both Hampton and Weiss conceded two goals from free-kicks while the England international was beaten once more from corners, Birmingham City conceding six goals from corners while Aston Villa conceded five. Weiss was beaten by her own players twice while Hampton conceded one own goal. Weiss comes out on top in terms of crosses stopped. She successfully took 24 of 215 crosses (11.2%) compared to Hampton’s record of 20 takes from 247 crosses (8.1%). Rogers didn’t claim a cross in her one outing.
In summary, both Hampton and Weiss have their strengths. Hampton saved the most shots including penalty kicks last season while Weiss was the better keeper when it came to keeping clean sheets and she was a more dominant figure in her own box when coming to claim crosses. The overall statistics are really close though and there will be some strong competition for the Villa goalkeeping jersey this season.
Stats: FBREF
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