Last Sunday night, Brighton’s social media team put out the message that ‘Sophie Baggaley is a human brick wall.’ Title hopefuls Manchester City peppered the Brighton goal with 35 shots, 13 of them on target. This amassed to an Expected Goals tally of 2.83, but the Seagulls shot stopper kept them all out. Baggaley played a key role in the shock 1-0 away win against City. Speaking a few days after that heroic display, Baggaley downplayed her performance, saying, “It actually wasn’t my busiest game. On paper it probably looks like it, but our back five had a really, really good game and I think I only actually had to dive for the ball once!” Despite her modesty, Baggaley is ranked as the most impressive goalkeeper in terms of Expected Goals conceded in the Women’s Super League, preventing the most dead-certain goals in the process. When asked about her statistics, Baggaley said, “I just focus on what I can do in the individual games. I don’t look into the statistics too much as they can paint whatever picture you want, so I just focus on what I can do but I don’t take too much notice of that.” She attributes Brighton’s clean sheet at City to the performances of her team-mates and praises Maria Thorisdottir and Guro Bergsvand, as well as Jorelyn Carabali for their solid play. As Brighton’s new goalkeeper, Baggaley is modest and doesn’t seek the limelight. Reflecting on her time as a back-up goalkeeper at Manchester United, she said, “I had a great time there and developed a lot as a goalkeeper, even though I didn’t play. But I don’t think it was a hard decision, it was something I wanted to do.” She credits her move to Brighton as an exciting project and a club that is “doing everything right.” Brighton signed Baggaley on WSL Deadline Day after a tense final day of the transfer window. She is one of 11 signings made by Brighton under relatively new coach Melissa Phillips and while this has strengthened the team, it also presented a challenge in terms of team cohesion. Despite a difficult start to the season, Brighton’s performance has improved and Baggaley feels confident about the team’s potential to gain results against top teams.
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