There weren’t many Liverpool players who came out of Sunday’s loss against Manchester United with much credit in the bank.
The Reds weren’t necessarily bad at Old Trafford, but individual mistakes helped contribute to a disappointing defeat. One of those with fingers pointed at him has been Darwin Nunez, who sloppily gave the ball away in the lead-up to United’s third goal.
Another who has been singled out has been goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher. Although there was seemingly not much Kelleher could do about any of the home side’s four strikes, former England goalkeeper Ben Foster gave a different point of view.
“Goalkeepers are an honest bunch and I think if Kelleher were sat here today he would say ‘yeah I should’ve saved it,” Foster told his Cycling GK podcast. “‘I thought I’d saved it, I looked at it and it went in. And I thought wow, how has that gone in.’ I’m almost certain that’s exactly what he would say.
“I think for him going forward he can learn a little bit from this,” he added. “If you look at the whole situation, it’s Amad Diallo, he’s a younger player anyway, fairly inexperienced in those situations. You’re thinking, 120th minute of the game, he’s got his head down and he knows he’s at an angle. He’s not going to be clever and slide it round into that near post, he’s not going to do that. You know that nine and-a-half times out of ten he’s going back across you.
“As young goalkeepers, they’ll take this, learn from this. In future the situation will arise again, they’ll make the save, simple as that.”
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We think this is a little harsh from Foster. Kelleher didn’t look to have done too much wrong when facing Amad. The youngster’s shot was simply well placed and even kissed the post before trickling in.
But in fairness to Foster, he knows a lot more about top-level goalkeeping than us. As a result, we’ll take his word for it.
If Kelleher wants to be an elite goalkeeper – and the signs are there that he can be – he’s going to have to take these little pointers on the chin.
Since his arrival into the team as a regular starter, the 25-year-old has had praise from every corner. He’s deserved it too, Kelleher’s brilliance has meant that the injured Alisson Becker has hardly been missed.
But if Foster is right about Sunday’s gut-punch goal from Amad, then maybe we finally felt the pinch of not having the best goalkeeper in the world available. It was always going to happen at some point.
Still, as the former Man United goalie also points out, this is something that Kelleher can take and really learn from. You’re not going to stop every shot, that’s part and parcel of being a goalkeeper. But if you can take bits from every goal that goes past you and learn how to improve for next time, you’re onto a winner.
As we’ve seen from Kelleher recently, he is a goalkeeper who does learn relatively quickly. He’s definitely picked up a lot from Alisson, for example. So, if Sunday’s blow leads to the Irishman being better in the long-run, then that’s a silver lining.
In the meantime, it still looks as though Alisson may be out for some time yet. Caoimh should have more chances to put this into practice.
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