Which two Yorkshire goalkeepers are among the best in the Championship

That could be good news for Huddersfield Town and Rotherham United, home to the third and fourth-best goalkeepers in the division this season according to the statisticians, less so for Hull City unless Liam Rosenior has plugged their many leaks during a mini-pre-season in Turkey.

All three clubs have a fight on their hands to stay in the second tier.

A respectable 16th after 21 matches, Rotherham's position is the most comfortable. Plumping up a cushion to the bottom three was the big aim from part one of the season and to do so after losing manager Paul Warne in September is not to be sniffed at. But after the trauma of relegation in their last three seasons at this level, no one is daft enough to take anything for granted.

They will need to be on the guard as soon as the Championship resumes – in their case, at home to Bristol City – and will need some good performances from Viktor Johansson between now and May.

As the bottom-placed team, Huddersfield's position is the worst, and a trip to Bramall Lane is hardly a gentle reintroduction. But a team which focused on shut-outs after Mark Fotheringham replaced Danny Schofield in September can take comfort from the fact Lee Nicholls is getting back to his best after an unconvincing start to the campaign.

Nicholls was the Championship's best goalkeeper last term but following up 2021-22 has been difficult for the team as a whole and the Merseysider produced a couple of moments in August which probably damaged the confidence others had in him more than his own.

BetVictor have used player data scouting to rank every Championship club's first-choice goalkeeper so far this season and have only rated Birmingham City's John Ruddy and Blackburn Rovers' Thomas Kaminski as better than the Yorkshire pair – despite no one having conceded more than their 26 goals each.

That shows there is still plenty of work to do, but at least both clubs have goalkeepers capable of making the big saves their teams will need. Johnasson, who spent much of last season on the sidelines watching Josh Vickers has the highest save percentage – 78.8 – of any second-tier goalkeeper.

Nicholls is sixth with 73.1 per cent.

But the analysis goes deeper, looking at how many more or fewer goals they have conceded than expected.

It is a bit of an inexact science, relying on subjective assessments of expected goals, but if the precise details can be argued over, the fact the pair score so highly tells a broader story.

Both are in the bottom four for "post-shot expected goals" – ie how many goals you would expect to let in judging by the quality and quantity of efforts faced.

Nicholls has had more to do than anyone, the number crunchers calculating he ought to have let in 30.4 goals in 20 games. Johansson owes a bigger debt to the protection he has been getting, with his prediction only 0.9 goals above reality.

When it comes to conceding goals, no one has been worse in the Championship than Hull.

A squad loaded with attacking talent in the summer has not shown the right attitude or ability when it comes to keeping the ball out of the net and because in the end, everything is connected, it has had a knock-on effect on the attack.

Even were he not a former defender, new coach Liam Rosenior would recognise addressing a goals against record of 39 from 21 games has to be the over-riding priority. Unable to see as much of the ball as they would like, the club's many flair players have only been able to conjure up 25 of their own – a mid-table effort.

The statistics do not shed so much light on how much the goalkeeper is to blame as Nathan Baxter and Matt Ingram have shared the duties and it is only the former, as he has made more appearances with 12, who is analysed.

Ranked 20th in the table – the same as his club – the verdict on the Chelsea loanee is certainly “could do better”.

His 56.5 save percentage is relegation stuff and 21 goals conceded compares unfavourably to the 15.6 the statisticians think it ought to have been.

One of the biggest surprises is that Sheffield United's Wes Foderingham ranks so low after some outstanding saves in October in particular for the title-chasers.

A save percentage of 64.4 is mid-range and he is one of those reckoned to have conceded more than he ought to have.

Still, with the help of Adam Davies, who filled in for three games after Foderingham’s red card against Blackpool, the Blades have conceded fewer goals than any team in the second tier.

Flowing football is all well and good but wherever you sit in whatever league table, success always flows from the back.