As others have recently said, Eddie is very aggressive when challenging for corners/crosses in to the box. He is generally more aggressive in every situation than most keepers. Every now and then, he is perhaos “too aggressive.”
But, for all of the times he is overly aggressive, which puts us in a bit of bother or leads to a penalty, there are three or four instances where his aggression has either snuffed out a half chance or completely saved us from what would have very likely been a goal with most other more conservative keepers. In some case his aggressive action has lead to an opposing player (or set of players) making a mistake which stopped a chance before it occurred. The net gain of his aggression is decidedly positive.
This got us to thinking about how the opposition players are actually subtly influenced by his normal play. Most will have either seen how Eddie reacts to situations firsthand or via studying video of his performances. And most will have either specifically experienced or noted his aggression in most situations. I think it is fair to say that most will have preconceived expectations of how he will react to various situations before they come up against him.
Now, the very best players in the world *might* be able to use that aggression against him on occasion. But not every time, as Eddie is actually still very good at winning various kinds of duels, in part with aggressive play. And the vast majority of players he will face aren’t especially talented or clever (not near the levels of a KDB, Hazard, Messi, Greizmann, etc., anyway), so will rarely be able to best him.
This means that, through their natural expectations of how Ederson will react in situations, the mere fact that he will generally be aggressive most likely influences the choices they are making in a match more than other keepers might. His reputation creates pressure and urgency that puts many players off or, at the very least, does not make it easy for them to execute their plans in various moments of games, some crucial.
His aggression, whilst not *always* leading to optimal outcomes, generally gives us a considerable edge and, as mentioned before, helps to cover frailties in our system of play, namely the weakness to counters (the bane of most possession-based tactical setups). Eddie’s sweeper movement has cut out many through and long balls that would have otherwise presented very dangerous chances for opposition players. But his general reputation of being aggressive also influences opposition players even attempting those and other actions. He changes the way teams play against us from the off, further amplifying his benefit to our system.
In short, although he can still improve (which is frightening in of itself), Ederson is the dog’s bollocks, has contributed to recent changes to what is expected of top class keepers (beyond just his ability with the ball at his feet), and is perfect fit for our play. And we desperately need to ensure Muric (or another academy keeper) is up to his quality and understand what he does for us, to ensure our system is not significantly impacted by an injury to him.
