FC Bayern München goalkeeper Manuel Neuer has kept a remarkable 143 clean sheets in 300 Bundesliga outings. - © © gettyimages / Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts
FC Bayern München goalkeeper Manuel Neuer has kept a remarkable 143 clean sheets in 300 Bundesliga outings. - © © gettyimages / Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts

Safe hands Neuer officially the Bundesliga's best

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It has been a long-running debate for a number of years, but now we have the statistics to prove it: FC Bayern München No.1 Manuel Neuer is the best goalkeeper in Bundesliga history.

Click here for Neuer's reaction to Bayern's win at Hannover

Bayern's 1-0 win away to Hannover 96 on Matchday 17 represented the 29-year-old's 143rd shutout in 300 Bundesliga outings, taking his goals-conceded-per-game average down to 0.79 - a new Bundesliga best-mark for goalkeepers in the plus-100 appearances bracket.

Always ready

Click here for our micro-site dedicated to the world's finest goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer.

Top of the pile

Picking the ball out of the net, on average, only once every 113 minutes, Neuer has also surpassed a string of legendary Bayern custodians since taking his Bundesliga bow on 19 August 2006. Oliver Kahn averaged 1.04 goals against per game, with Raimond Aumann and Jean-Marie Pfaff a shade less watertight on 1.06. Former Borussia Mönchengladbach star Marc-Andre ter Stegen is the first non-Bayern player on the list, having let 117 goals slip through his grasp in 108 Bundesliga appearances.

When the Great Wall of Manu does eventually hang up his gloves, he will almost certainly do so with a bounty of additional, and perhaps untouchable, best-marks to his name.

Jürgen Blöhs/ Christopher Mayer-Lodge

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