He consolidated his number 2 position Dec 2020 after his champs league appearance (Ajax) last year along with his premier league appearance (Wolves). He is caught between a rock and a hard place at the moment. He needs senior football experience, but we’ve being saying that for the past 3 years
Karius is still at Liverpool too despite efforts to ship him out on loan. 23 is still young for a keeper but games are needed.
Wow, I actually didn't realise Karius is still with Liverpool, and he's not even out on loan this year. Surely he'd have done a job for a lower league team given some of the goalkeeping you see on the EFL highlights show.
Some amount of keepers they have, there's a second Brazilian and a Northern Irish keeper who was signed as a training keeper also, you'd wonder what the point of that was.
He rejected a move to Basel due to wage demands. Has a year left on his contract and was also offered an 80% wage for termination which he rejected. Could possibly leave in January or go on emergency loan to the EFL. Certainly a bit mad though.
He’s nominally 4th choice keeper. Then they’ve got 2 young lads out on loan up next (Jaros, Orzinsky). Then 3 keepers at 23s (Pitaluga, Hughes, Kelly) and 3 at 18s (Davies, Mrozek, Hewitson).
Seems like quite a lot of keepers... I guess it’s a demonstration as to how far Kelleher has come to rise to where he is.
He must have overtaken about 20 keepers during his time at the club. Just a shame that Alisson is probably the best keeper Liverpool have had since the days of Ray Clemence.
Even externally, someone made the point on YBIG that the top 6 clubs don't tend to have low grade keepers as their number two or, when they have bought number two they haven't been cheap. Kepa, Steffen, Henderson, Ward, Gollini. They all have caps for Spain, USA, England, Wales and Italy.
Continues to remind everyone how good he is tonight in the EFL Cup. A couple of saves and a save from a penalty. It wasn't a great penalty. He picked his side and dived to his right but the penalty went down the middle. His trailing feet were there to meet it and make good contact and save the ball. It was a poor penalty but he did well to slow his dive and leave his feet behind to save.
I was actually very impressed with that save, the amount of penalties I've seen where the keeper dives low to the left or right and the ball flies just past their legs low into the middle as they dive away from it - I've often wondered why more keepers don't play the percentages and keep their trailing legs in line with the penalty spot to cover those kind of penalty kicks. Kelleher did just that tonight and saved the penalty.
Arguably he could have done better with the save that led up to the penalty by pushing it around the post rather than palming it back into the area but overall he played very well.
Yeah that save was a bit on the ropey side reminded me of packie against Italy in 1990. Kelleher is class though. Grabara appeared to be more highly related when they were 18 or 19 in the academy so he has done really well to get to the level he is at now. Will be interesting to see what Liverpool will get for him when they sell him but I think there would be plenty of clubs who would pay 15 million plus for him next summer
My thoughts exactly.
Always great to save a penalty but it was a terrible penalty. I've even saved a few like that myself - just to downplay Eirambler's appreciation of it
I thought overall he looked really confident and lively. He looks like he thinks he belongs, which is important.
I was just thinking, since I started supporting the team in 1987, we have never had a bad goal keeper. as our number 1
Bonner
Kelly
Keily
Given
Randy
Gavin
Overall we've been lucky with keepers. Only weak period really was probably the later Given years before Randolph took over. Forde got the jersey for a while around then and while he was by no means a bad keeper, I was never fully convinced by him.
If Bazunu is to come in and nail down the jersey for the next 15 to 20 years we could have a case where we have had almost a straight run of just four keepers for close to 60 years.
Pat Bonner 1981-1996 80 caps
Shay Given 1996-2015 134 caps
Darren Randolph 2015-2020 50 caps
Gavin Bazunu 2021-203?
It's not quite as clear cut as that of course, Seamus McDonagh shared the keeper duties with Bonner in the 80s, Alan Kelly had a stint around the handover time between Bonner and Given and Forde had his stint as well, but not far off it all the same.
I'm sure Kelleher has other ideas about Bazunu nailing down the jersey as well.
Last edited by Eirambler; 22/09/2021 at 10:37 AM.
We were looking a bit thin for cover at times. Wayne Henderson in San Marino springs to mind. Nicky Colgan. Kelham O'Hanlon. Keith Branagan was one who could have featured more. He was really good at Bolton.
Mick Kearns of Walsall was the main guy when I started watching, then Seamus McDonagh. Both rock solid for us. I remember watching "Jim" McDonagh on MOTD as a kid before I knew he was Irish and he was a standout keeper in the old First Division.
Paddy Roche played a few times, maybe just before I started watching.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 22/09/2021 at 11:46 AM.
Also, trying to work out who was our last first choice keeper from Dublin before Bazunu? Randolph is from Wicklow, Given and Bonner Donegal, Kelly and McDonagh are English, Alan Kelly Sr was from Wicklow also I think. Maybe I've forgotten someone. Might be going a long way back to find one from Dublin before Bazunu came along, which is surprising given how many players Dublin provide to the senior team.
i enjoyed it. it obviously deals with his time with Ireland in the early 80s when i first became a fan, took everything at face value but was not aware of all the mad stuff going on in the FAI, crooked referees etc!
It also deals with the mad trip to south america around the time of the falklands war. also some very difficult personal stuff in it that I wasn't aware of before.
worth a read
Bookmarks