Joan Garcia living up to expectations of Barcelona move

Barcelona were confident in signing Joan Garcia, but the Spaniard announced himself to Europe in the Newcastle-Barca match under Hansi Flick. Without delivering a performance for the ages, the goalkeeper was once again decisive, making five crucial saves to thwart Eddie Howe's side and deny the 'Cules'.

Facing six shots on target, he saved five and conceded one. According to BeSoccer Pro's xG (expected goals) metric – which estimates how many goals Joan Garcia would typically concede based on the quality of chances – the figure was 2.21, while he only conceded one.

This gives him a positive balance of +1.21. This has been a familiar pattern during his time at Espanyol and continues now at Barca. He kept a clean sheet against Valencia with an xG against of 0.11, and a similarly low 0.21 against Mallorca. Against Rayo Vallecano, this figure rose to 2.18, but he still only conceded one goal.

The game against Levante saw the highest xG against him (2.48), where he conceded two goals. Despite this, he still outperformed expectations with a positive difference of +0.48. In total, he's retrieved the ball from the net four times this season, but data analysis suggests it should have been just over seven (7.2).

Of the 16 shots he's faced on target, only three have been from outside the box. The goals he's conceded have all come from relatively close range.