I don't think he has improved this year, to be honest. I think he was better last year. Even in the few games he played, the stats show this as well. That's not to say I thought he was actually good last year, though. I don't remember any or many instances where I was thinking, "You really should have done better there.", But equally I can't remember anything amazing.
You can look at the Goals Prevented per 90 stats, and you can filter it out for people who've played by more than 20 games or whatever. It still has Brynn near the bottom unfortunately.
You can say "goals prevented" is flawed, but the thing is, the best keepers that pass the eye test, and who get the big transfers are always at the top of it. Look who's topped it the last couple of years, Rushworth and Trafford, and Peretz was top for the last 6 months, he's been unreal, replaced Bazunu who was bottom of the list and awful. Travers was unreal for us too, on the eye test and in the stats. All of the keepers that we've slated for Boro over the recent years have all got bad stats too.
No, the others' mistakes don't cause Brynn a stats problem, if anything, they give him an opportunity to make a save to make that goals prevented even better. One of the very few arguments I have that supports Brynn is that he's not actually getting many chances to make saves, but the best keepers do still make those saves when called on (so like Peretz, Rushworth, Trafford last year etc).
I just think getting a keeper for even 3, 4, 5 million would be good value, we could be buying a difference of, say, minus seven goals prevented to plus seven goals prevented. We could be buying a 14 goal difference there for 5m. To buy those 14 goals elsewhere in the pitch is going to cost a hell of a lot more money. For a striker, you could be talking 15-20 million for that. All the goals are worth the same, whether you're scoring them or keeping them out the other end.
Other than Morris/Hackney - Which of our players can you genuinely say improved during the season? - They all had purple patches and poor runs of form, same as Brynn.
Brynn has improved year on year. He was playing in Scotland, then L2, then L1, now the Championship in (almost) consecutive seasons.
You can't get a much better proof of improvement than moving up levels of the pyramid.
He's only been given one season at this level - and based on his historic improvement year on year, it would be stupid to not give him another one (in my opinion).
The problem from Brynn's perspective is it's very easy to forget his good form at the start of the season, due to the few mistakes he made at the end of it (play-off final being one example).
It's much easier to remember a GK's mistakes than a GK's "anything amazing" because the amazing rarely happens, and what's expected is overlooked...
Comparing him individually to Trafford or Rushworth doesn't work - They were part of teams which dominated the league, had the best overall defensive records, and finished #1.
If you compare Brynn to Pandur:
Brynn has saved a higher % of shots with a xGOT of higher than 0.5 - 26% vs 24%.
Brynn has also saved a higher % of shots between 0.3 - 0.5 - 78% vs. 76%.
And they've both saved 97% of shots with a xGOT of below 0.2
The weird anomaly in the results is shots with a xGOT of 0.2 (I rounded, so it's between 0.15 and 0.24).... Brynn has only saved 52% of these which seems shocking - Pandur has saved 89%.
But when you look deeper at these actual shots, they include:
Norwich in August - 0.18 xGOT - shot from outside the box, took a deflection off Jones.
Watford in November - 0.21 xGOT - screamer from outside the box, I don't know how Brynn could have saved it.
Both Southampton goals in the play-offs also fall into this category - Brynn might have been able to do better, but Charles goal was definitely a poor-cross, not a good-shot.
They also mostly came in games we won - so it would be interesting to see a stat on how many of the "goals prevented" equated to "points won/lost". I don't think it would be many.
You mentioned keepers who get the big transfers - and then getting a keeper for 3,4,5 million would be good value - but Brynn is currently the 3rd highest value keeper in the league.
