ha... i cheered a clearance by one of the liverpool players in the 90th minute and had to pinch myself afterwards!
i just needed a clean sheet by a 22 year old Irish GK making his champions league debut to cling onto after all the last 12 months that irish international football (all levels, all ages, all genders) has done to me!
Starts this evening
An Erik Thorstvedt's kind of save from the kid
First Klopp can't pronounce his name properly and now Kelleher has the name on the back of his shirt spelt incorrectly!
Looked very solid again tonight. Made a real contribution - two good saves that were both a couple of minutes before Liverpool scored at the other end and another goal was a length of the pitch passing move that started at his feet.
Of all the young Irish players coming through in the last few years Kelleher was one that I just wasn't convinced by in the games I had seen him in. But he has put in two very good performances back to back in meaningful games for Liverpool this week and he deserves a huge amount of credit for that.
It's early days for him and there will obviously be mistakes and setbacks, but this week alone he has become the first Irish GK to keep a clean sheet in the Champions League and the first Liverpool keeper in over a century to keep a clean sheet in the top flight of English football. It's looking very promising for him all of a sudden.
Only problem now is that he looks very much the Liverpool number two keeper, so may not go on loan. The irony is that after these performances there would probably be plenty of decent loan offers for him now.
Yep. Definitely had my doubts due to his involvement in some of those leaky cup performances by Liverpool, but has looked very cool and capable in the two matches over the last week.
Great to see an Irish player play a meaningful role in an elite team, which we haven’t seen much in recent years.
RE: going out on loan, you never know. Henderson is clearly considered the second best keeper at Man Utd, but would have been sent on loan if not for his own input in asking to stay and fight for the No. 1 role.
Very good performance again from Kelleher - one excellent save and one decent one. But what I was delighted to see was him dealing with two crosses - the first one he took cleanly and I punched the air with delight. The second one he came for a difficult one and looked like he would not get to it but stretched and got enough of a touch to keep it away from danger. Even dealt with a communication mix-up where he wanted Matip or Fabinho to clear a through ball to the wing and they passed it back to him but he still got a good clearance on it.
So what a difference a week makes - the big question is: how many games does Kelleher have to play before he takes over from Randolph? Should Kenny start him in the World Cup qualifiers if he has half a dozen more appearances between now and then, taking into account that he has no senior caps?
My general view is that the holder of a shirt should keep it until he lets you down.
The calculation may be a little different if both players are mostly sitting on the bench by March, especially if Kelleher’s ball-playing ability is seen to be more compatible with Kenny’s style of play. Randolph’s discomfort on the ball, as pointed out by many here, has been a concern in the Kenny era.
You can’t be sentimental at this level, but if Randolph is dropped it will be harsh as he really has been (and continues to be) very solid for us at his MAIN job, which is stopping shots.
I like Randolph, and I thought the calls to drop him were premature because he's been very reliable for us and none of the alternatives were remotely proven. Kelleher is nibbling into the latter point now, and an injured Randolph would no longer leave me in cold sweats. All the same, goalkeeper is - above all other positions - one that you have to judge over a long time-frame. Fingers crossed Kelleher continues to impress at Liverpool or on loan.
I don't know. The post PS was replying to didn't specify Irish, and so seems to suggest Liverpool haven't kept a clean sheet in a century, which seems... unlikely. Whether PS's suggestion was in fact the intended stat is not yet clear.
You can't spell failure without FAI
If Kenny persists with possession football and Kelleher is playing reasonably regularly then Kelleher is number 1. It is painful watching Randolph trying to play possession football, he has already made serious mistakes with change of style. He’s an average keeper, yes he’s done okay for Ireland but if he continues warming a bench, then time for Kelleher in March (as long as he continues to develop nicely).
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