I'm fed up of hearing old players bemoaning goalkeepers punching the ball, because "it wasn't like that in our day." I'm just surprised they haven't blamed it on "PC gone mad," which is the usual catch-all phrase to avoid having to provide any actual data.
"We got beaten by teachers in school and it didn't do us any harm. It's PC gone mad!"
"We had asbestos in the loft and it didn't do us any harm. It's PC gone mad!"
"We got into cars with strange men and it didn't do us any harm. It's PC gone mad!"
I wish they'd get a proper goalkeeping coach to explain why this move from catching to punching has become more common in the modern game. You can be sure that they've got more data on the subject than the "it's PC gone mad" brigade.
There isn't much out there in the Google wastelands, though some goalkeeping tips mention that obviously a more powerfully hit shot is harder to catch and with the advent of the modern ball, which was made to deliberately move in the air in order to encourage more goals, there's more chance that an attempted catch will be dropped. A parried shot, with spread fingers rather than a fist, has more chance of success, even if it's not entirely accurate.
A dropped catch is almost always going to fall into a more dangerous area than a punched one, even if the punch doesn't go that far.
I found a chart from January 2017 of Premier League punches so far that season.
De Gea - 2
Zieler - 4
Adrian - 4
Robles - 4
Lloris - 4
Karius - 4
Heaton - 4
Foster - 4
Schmeichel - 5
Randolph - 5
Mandanda - 5
Forster - 5
Mignolet - 6
Valdes - 6
Marshall - 7
Courtois - 8
Cech - 8
Stekelenberg - 9
Bravo - 10
Boruc- 11
Pickford - 12
Fabianski - 12
Grant - 16
Gomes - 21
The spread doesn't really show that punching is more or less effective, given that the top six that season were Courtois (8), Lloris (4), Bravo (10), Karius (4), Cech (8) and De Gea (2). Not much consistency there.
Maybe it's like zonal and it all comes down to a manager's and goalkeeping coach's preferences.
