Thought he was poor enough for the first goal as well. Second was a clear mistake.
I think the concern is that it's probably not the kind of performance you'd expect from a £15m to £20m keeper hoping to be a Premier League first choice next season. He does seem to concede a lot of goals where you think - that's not an out and out disastrous mistake, but another keeper might have got to it. Added to his lack of playing time I could see a lot of clubs thinking he's one to pass on for now at the prices being quoted.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Disappointing performance. No catastrophic mistakes but Alisson would have definitely saved the first, second and fourth.
Saw the full second half and he made two decent interventions. Good single handed save but probably would have been slightly disappointed if they scored, and an excellent one where he was brave and pounced at the feet of the attacker…
On the subject of goalkeepers, Travers came out of today really well. From the highlights, he looked to have a performance similar to the ones that had Bournemouth raving about him last year.
I watched the Everton/Bournemouth match, and Travers played really well. He made some great saves and what impressed me most was how confident he was on the ball when an Everton attacker closed him down. He's too good to sit on the bench next season, needs a move to a Championship club where he can play fifty times.
3.1 apparently - though really PSxG is generally only reverted to when people are denying a poor performance. No-one's doing that here.
Though even that shows that it wasn't a "desperate" performance as suggested. Alisson almost certainly would have stopped one, quite possibly two, and that's the difference a top keeper is worth.
Whoscored gave him a 6.6 rating which again isn't dreadful; he obviously had a couple of other saves to make in the game as elated mentions. (How Liverpool gave up so many chances to a dreadful Southampton side I don't know; it's why I suggested they were on summer holiday mode earlier)
He needs regular football which we all know. This game probably won't have added to his transfer value though, which you'd imagine will be annoying to Liverpool as they need a rebuild in the summer.
Travers was rated 7.5 incidentally. Nice little reminder he can still play a bit.
I think he can do better for all four goals. The first two are down to lack of match sharpness imo, reaction speed is too slow. Just didn’t get down quick enough. His positioning is all wrong for 3 and 4, needs to be a step more central for the third goal, moved too far towards the end line for the fourth.
Disappointing from our perspective with the Greece game. Kenny can’t pick Bazunu or Kelleher with confidence, Travers had a good showing, but he has been put firmly behind Bazunu and Kelleher to date. Wonder if O’Leary is in consideration.
Fairly sure it will be Bazunu all the way for June. He made 32 Premier League appearances this season and while he was by no means outstanding, when they did drop him there was a notable drop off in standards to McCarthy I felt.
Kelleher remains in a position where his main international goalkeeping rival is 3 years younger and considerably more experienced than him. I don't think the order has changed at all between the three keepers in the last year.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Kelleher has got to do something/go somewhere and show his hand over a season. If Travers regains his Bournemouth place (and performs well) or transfers to the Championship (and performs there like previously) then it's a two horse-race between him and Bazunu based on Championship form. A few Kelleher midweek cup games is not enough.
Post shot xg is probably a fairer to judge a keeper on than normal xg. TBF to CK Allison is different level altogether, for me hes the best in the business. CK isnt anywhere near that level. Hope he moves on the in the summer, i do think he'll push for a move this time. The 3rd goal in particular was desperate from liverpool , the rest of the team had packed it in.
Kelleher will be 25 in November too. Not old by any definition but another season with a single figure club game tally would be fairly disastrous for his development? Easy say with hindsight that he should have gone elsewhere (even on loan) this year but if he ends up staying put again for another 12 months... it wouldn't be encouraging.
I think he has to move if he is interested in playing. As per Wiki he's only played half as many games this season as last (8 v 4) and this season was his joint lowest since he made his debut. Hasn't been given a minute in Europe for two consecutive seasons now too?
I think he should bite the arm of any Championship club who'll have to be honest. He needs games.
Looked like a classic “haven’t played in ages” performance, but I’d qualify that with a few comments – mainly that I think his positioning was suspect twice.
- One of the first half goals was very close to his feet. I always hated them, but I’m of a lankier build than CK. It’s much easier if the ball is wider as you can actually get down quicker. It didn’t look good but it maybe looked softer than it actually was?
- But I thought his positioning was poor for the third and fourth goals.
- I took a still from the telly for the third, the angle from behind the goal. The whole goal was open for the goalscorer to shoot at. Sure, a still can’t be taken in isolation but it looked really bad. Reminiscent of his positioning for the Batshuayi goal at home to Belgium imho.
- For the fourth I think he “over-covered” the near post, leaving the far post wide open.
Last edited by tetsujin1979; 30/05/2023 at 3:06 PM. Reason: adding requested images
The Belgium goal is more a lack of alertness/ urgency on Kelleher’s part and the quality of the strike than a positioning issue imo. The Southampton goal is a positioning mess as your picture shows and not liking how small and narrow his body shape is in that picture. Compared to Travers, for example, who fills out the goals with his body shape, Kelleher tends to make himself small and gives up more of the goals to shoot at. He can do better, and needs to play to do better and improve, hopefully his two appearances in 2023 (Latvia + Southampton) don’t cool off potential moves.
His positioning is wrong in both of those images. Worse in the Liverpool one definitely, but wrong in both. I think this kind of thing is a consequence of him never having found out and ironed out his weaknesses by playing games.
Realistically how many games that genuinely matter has Kelleher played in his career? By that I mean League games that weren't end of season dead rubbers, CL games that weren't dead rubbers, FA Cup games and competitive international games. I'd maybe count the league cup final as that probably mattered to Liverpool on the day, but most league cup games they don't actually care about- that's why he gets to play in them.
He has probably played about 10 or 12 of those games that actually matter in his whole career - four nations league games for Ireland when Bazunu was out and maybe seven or eight for Liverpool across his entire time there. It's clear his positioning within the goal is an issue, and there may well be others that will only be exposed once he finally becomes a first team goalkeeper somewhere, whenever that is.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Is the positioning of his legs bad? I'm not a coach, so I don't know if this is correct or not, but I've seen coaching videos with goalkeepers where they're told if they're preparing to dive, or to move left or right quickly, they can't get the maximum use from their leg muscles if they're too close together. Of course, it could just be the photos, and he adjusted his stance before/after the photo was taken.
I don't know about his legs but his head is looking around his defender to the right while the ball was being shifted to his left. So not only was he in wrong position but his weight would have been slightly to the wrong side when the ball was struck.
I think the point about looking small in goals is true. I think it was elatedscum who made a similar point after being beaten in a 1:1 at Chelsea, albeit in a different context.
He does seem to stand very upright in the goal alright. I wonder does that leave him exposed to low shots, as it takes him a split second longer to get down to them then, he definitely seems to have a weakness with them anyway. That split second can be the difference for a keeper really.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
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