The art of goalkeeping has undergone a massive evolution. In the past, the job was rooted in shot-stopping, aerial dominance, marshaling the defence and, to some extent, being a “bully” in the box. The modern goalkeeper is expected to do far more than make saves or win aerial duels in the eighteen-yard box.

Today’s goalkeeper must be as good with his or her feet as with the hands. That demand gave birth to the sweeper and ball-playing goalkeeper, now an integral part of the modern game. Coaches around the world increasingly lean towards keepers who give them an extra outfield player over those who pride themselves on shot-stopping alone.

For some, this evolution has caused goalkeepers to lose focus on their core responsibility and concentrate on the buildup instead. Manchester City profited from it more than most. Between 2017 and 2025, Brazilian Ederson stood between the sticks for Pep Guardiola’s side in a hugely successful spell that brought four successive Premier league titles, a first Champions league and a FIFA Club World Cup.

Ederson made 372 appearances in all competitions during his eight years at City. He won 18 major trophies, kept 122 Premier league clean sheets, collected three Premier league assists and three Golden Gloves, and was named the best FIFA men’s goalkeeper in 2023.

The highlight of his City career was his ball-playing ability and the cold-blooded nerve to stay calm in the most pressured games, even inviting pressure onto himself to start City’s buildup. The Brazilian did not just rewrite the standard of what it means to be a goalkeeper in the modern era. He became the reference point, the definition of what the role demands.

After Ederson’s departure, City, with Guardiola in his final year, signed Gianluigi Donnarumma from Paris Saint-Germain for €30 million. The move sent shockwaves through the Premier league.

Here was a goalkeeper whose greatest weakness is his feet, with little reputation for picking out a 30 or 40-yard pass. It looked like the clearest sign yet that the days of the sweeper-keeper were over and that we were heading back to the era of the pure shot-stopper.

On paper, the move made sense. In four seasons at PSG, from 2021 to 2025, Donnarumma established himself as one of the world’s elite goalkeepers. He made 104 Ligue 1 appearances, conceding 102 goals and keeping 32 clean sheets, and his 2023–24 season stood out in particular: 81.8% saves and 11 clean sheets in 25 games. It all culminated in a historic continental treble and PSG’s first Champions League title in 2025.

His individual honours tell the same story:

·       Yashin Trophy (2021, 2025)

·       The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper (2025)

·       IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper (2025)

·       UNFP Ligue 1 Goalkeeper of the Year (2021–22, 2023–24)

·       FIFA FIFPRO World XI (2021, 2025)

·       Seventh place in the 2025 Ballon d’Or

Many fans were confused when news broke that he was leaving PSG after such a successful season. Why would a world-class goalkeeper suddenly be unwanted by the club he had guided to its first UCL title? The question was also asked of City. Why go for a goalkeeper so different from what the club had known for a decade? Was it a sign of changes to come, perhaps a departure from the philosophy and identity Guardiola had established?

Donnarumma has been City’s first-choice goalkeeper since joining on deadline day in August 2025. His cumulative figures across the 2025–26 season and the current campaign read as follows:

Under Guardiola, his role had changed significantly to fit City’s build-from-the-back philosophy. Traditionally seen as a pure shot-stopper, he took on far more distribution, with a sharp rise in volume and responsibility.

He plays short from goal kicks 71% of the time, pulling opposition structures forward before playing through them. He averages more than 40 touches a game, a notable increase on his previous career baselines, and acts as an eleventh outfield player in the initial buildup. He has also committed only one error leading to a goal from a misplaced pass under high pressure in his domestic campaigns.

But the devil, they say, is in the detail, and that is where the eye test comes in. Donnarumma built his reputation as a commanding presence in his area: a world-class shot-stopper, decisive, aware of his positioning and a strong reader of the game. This season, the big Italian has looked suspect. His pass selection has been poor, his positioning has wavered, he has lacked aerial dominance, and he has often been indecisive.

As of 6 November 2026, he has made three errors leading to goals for City this season across all competitions. One came in the Premier league defeat at Aston Villa. The other two came in the Champions league, against Paris Saint-Germain and RB Leipzig. That is a concerning record by early November, but the data supports the claim that he is jeopardizing City’s trophy chances, not the absolute claim that City cannot win anything with him.

The history of title-winning goalkeepers makes the point:

Across six title-winning campaigns, Ederson made three goal-producing league errors in total, with none in four of those seasons. Donnarumma has already reached three across all competitions this season. Alisson made one in each of Liverpool’s two title-winning seasons, and Raya made one in Arsenal’s 2025–26 triumph.

The benchmark here is low error frequency, not perfection. Errors do not make trophies impossible, and Ederson’s two in 2017–18 are a direct counterexample. The real question is whether the goalkeeper’s overall contribution, and the team around him, can compensate.

This is where blaming Donnarumma alone becomes incomplete. CBS Sports’ analysis, using TruMedia data, reports that City once allowed roughly 7.5 opposition shots per match. That number has crept up steadily:

City’s current league figure is roughly 40% higher than that baseline. More shots mean more situations demanding goalkeeping intervention, and adding avoidable mistakes to that heavier workload makes the defensive problem harder to contain.

The same analysis argues that City accepted less contribution in possession than Ederson gave them, in exchange for Donnarumma’s elite shot-stopping. If he supplies only ordinary shot-stopping while also making costly errors, City are not getting the benefit that justified the trade-off.

There are mitigating numbers. Across his 56 Premier league and Champions league appearances for City, Donnarumma has conceded six fewer goals than the post-shot expected-goals value of the attempts he faced, a measure that accounts for the quality and placement of shots on target. The saves are there. The errors are the issue.

The mistakes have already had consequences. The Villa error helped turn a league match into a defeat. The Leipzig error surrendered a lead and forced City to recover before Haaland’s winner. Both increased the burden on the attack, yet Leipzig also shows that City can win despite them.

Knockout football is less forgiving. An equivalent mistake can decide a tie with no later fixtures to repair the damage. That makes the pattern dangerous, though not a guarantee of elimination.

Donnarumma’s recent errors are undermining City’s reliability, especially behind a defence that is allowing more shots. Title-winning comparators generally kept their league error totals at zero or one, and he is already beyond that. But to claim that City “cannot win the league or any trophy” with him goes beyond the evidence. The historical title-winning records and City’s victory in Leipzig both contradict that certainty.

City does not have a Donnarumma problem or a team problem. They have both, and fixing only one of them will not be enough.

By Addy Kennedy Edem