Liverpool’s Battle Of The Keepers

16 Dec

 

Liverpool’s goalkeeping position has been a much publicised problem position, probably since former keeper Pepe Reina left the club.

Simon Mignolet took over from the much respected Spanish keeper, and has had a tough time winning the Anfield faithful over, and things haven’t been looking good regarding his future at Liverpool since Klopp signed Loris Karius in the summer.

Mignolet started the season in fine form and was very unlucky to lose his place in the team when Karius recovered from his broken hand injury he sustained in pre-season.

Obviously Klopp prefers Karius and thinks he will eventually prove an upgrade on Mignolet, but he hasn’t looked convincing since he took over from the Belgian.

Karius hasn’t looked confident between the sticks and Klopp made the decision to bring back Mignolet for the 3-0 win over Middlesbrough this week, after Karius received a lot of criticism for his performances in his last two games that saw Liverpool drop five points against Bournemouth and West Ham.

Credit must go to Mignolet after the disappointment of losing his place to Karius, but he has said all the right things when interviewed and worked hard at training and he’s really been the complete professional regarding his situation.

Many players find it hard to come to terms with losing their place and look for a move elsewhere or are not prepared to work as hard as they did when in the team, but that can’t be said for Mignolet and he was rewarded with another chance this week as Klopp decided to take Karius out of the team after enduring such a difficult time.

Mignolet’s performance against Middlesbrough was almost perfect the other night, he looked so much more commanding than we’ve seen him previously, by coming out and catching crosses, and he was more eager to release the ball to start attacks.

More importantly Mignolet made a couple of crucial saves in the first half that gave Liverpool the platform to go on and win convincingly.

It looks like the competition for the goalkeeping spot has helped Mignolet, can Karius respond to the challenge ?

 

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