A clean sheet in football is when a goalkeeper and defensive team are able to stop the opposition from scoring a goal.
A clean sheet gets its name from the time when scores were recorded on paper. If a team managed to stop their opponents from scoring, their side of the sheet stayed blank or clean.
Netherlands football legend Johan Cruyff famously stated, “In my teams, the goalkeeper is the first attacker, and the striker is the first defender.” This philosophy has become the cornerstone of modern football, where high pressing and possession-based play are the keys to achieving extraordinary success.
In today’s game, goalkeepers must always be alert, possessing strong ball-playing abilities to distribute passes or initiate counterattacks.
While preventing a team from scoring is a collective effort, the clean sheet is ultimately credited to the goalkeeper.
This is why a clean sheet is so crucial for a keeper; it’s often seen as a true measure of their season’s individual performance.
The Premier League is often regarded as the most competitive football league in Europe. Goalkeepers play an enormously vital role in their teams’ ability to keep clean sheets in the Premier League.
Every year, at the end of the campaign, the keeper with the most clean sheets receives the Premier League Golden Glove.
In 2024-25 the award was shared. Arsenal’s David Raya and Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels both finished on 13 clean sheets and took the Golden Glove between them — only the third time in the award’s history that two goalkeepers have shared it, and the fewest clean sheets ever recorded by a winner. Raya had won it outright the season before, in 2023-24, with 16.
Chelsea legend Petr Cech holds the Premier League record for most clean sheets.
The shot-stopper registered an unbelievable 202 clean sheets throughout his Premier League career with Chelsea and Arsenal.
The likes of David James (169) and Mark Schwarzer (151) are a long way behind Cech in terms of Premier League clean sheets.
Cech and Joe Hart share the record for the most Premier League Golden Glove awards, with four each. Raya has since joined Manchester City’s Ederson on three, and he is the one closing on the record: his three came in consecutive seasons, in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26.
The final 2024-25 standings are below, as the Premier League published them at the end of the season. This page covers that campaign; for what happened next, see the section under the table.
Most clean sheets in Premier League 2024-25
| Pos | Player | Club | Clean Sheets |
| 1 | Matz Sels | Nottingham Forest | 13 |
| 1 | David Raya | Arsenal | 13 |
| 3 | Jordan Pickford | Everton | 12 |
| 4 | Dean Henderson | Crystal Palace | 11 |
The Premier League named the top four in its end-of-season standings, and those are the four reproduced above.
What happened next: the 2025-26 Golden Glove
The 13 that won it in 2024-25 did not last long as a low-water mark. In 2025-26, David Raya kept 19 clean sheets for Arsenal to win the Golden Glove outright — six clear of the joint-winning total from the year before, and four ahead of Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma on 15.
That made it three in a row for Raya. Only three goalkeepers had managed a run of three before him: Pepe Reina, Joe Hart and Ederson. Figures on this page are current to 27 August 2026.
Photo credit: Imago