Jurgen Klopp blocked Liverpool star’s exit – and now wants him to take his chance
Caoimhin Kelleher is set for an extended run as Liverpool’s No1 after Alisson Becker’s hamstring injury against Manchester City this past weekend
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp believes Irish keeper Caoimhin Kelleher will show why he had to keep him at the club last summer.
The Reds were handed a boost yesterday with news that keeper Alisson’s hamstring injury is not as bad as first feared. The Brazilian shot stopper
suffered the muscle problem late on in the Reds’ 1-1 draw with Manchester City on Saturday.
Alisson, 31, had delivered an error-strewn performance against the Premier League champions before picking up the hamstring complaint. There
were fears that he could face a lengthy spell on the sidelines but there are now hopes he can return for the clash against Manchester United on
December 17 at Anfield.
Alisson will still miss tonight’s Europa League clash with Lask and the Premier League encounters with Fulham and Sheffield United, and
potentially Crystal Palace. Kop boss Jurgen Klopp said: “We have to see – not day by day, he will not play tomorrow, not on Sunday, probably not the
week after. Then it should be kind of OK.”
Irish keeper Kelleher will step in for Alisson in his absence. The Republic of Ireland international would have featured in tonight’s game against Lask
but will now step up in the Premier League as well.
He was linked with a move away in the summer with key figures in the Irish set up keen for him to become a regular starter elsewhere. But Klopp
wouldn’t consider allowing his No 2 leave. And it was for moments like this that he wanted to keep the talented keeper.
“That’s why we knew we wanted to have Caoimh here for these moments,” Klopp said. “Nobody, Caoimh as well, wanted Ali to get injured, but if these
things happen then you need the strongest possible option and that’s Caoimh for us.
“That’s the only positive about that, to be honest, that we can put in Caoimh. That’s fine. “Now he gets an opportunity that he deserves, he would have
played this game anyway, that’s clear, but now he will have a few more games and hopefully he can show his full potential.”
Diogo Jota, who also suffered a muscle injury at the Etihad, will need a longer recovery time. The Reds can secure qualification to the knockout stages
of the Europa League with victory over the Austrian side and will do as group winners if Toulouse fail to beat Union SG.
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Jürgen Klopp has ‘incredible’ Fabinho heir at Liverpool who is making Cheick Doucouré irrelevant
With Cheick Doucouré having suffered a serious injury for Crystal Palace over the weekend, Liverpool will remain focused on its existing ‘Fabinho’
experiment.
Two things happened in the Premier League over the course of the weekend. Both of them are likely to have a real impact on the future of Liverpool’s
midfield department.
First, Alexis Mac Allister started for the Reds in their toughest fixture of the campaign, facing Manchester City away from home. The World Cup
winner was deployed as a lone holding midfielder, with Jürgen Klopp using him as his deepest presence in the middle this season after
allowing Fabinho to leave the club in the summer.
Mac Allister isn’t a natural defensive player given his past as a number 10, but he’s performed reasonably well on Merseyside so far. Many feared that
he would be exploited by Pep Guardiola’s offensive talent, but the Argentina international stepped up and painted himself as one of his team’s better
performers on the day. He produced quite an impressive showing, with Manchester City only scoring once after Alisson Becker made a crucial error
on the ball.
A few hours later on the same Saturday afternoon, Crystal Palace travelled to Kenilworth Road to face Luton Town. After 54 minutes of action, a
certain Cheick Doucouré had to be substituted due to a serious injury concern. The Mali international left the field on a stretcher, with manager Roy
Hodgson worried about his immediate future.
During the summer window, as the Reds explored the market for a capable replacement for Fabinho, Klopp was linked with a transfer move for
Doucouré (per the Independent). No bid materialized from Anfield, but the rumor was an intriguing one as the African midfielder seemed to possess
the necessary qualities to fill the void.
Doucouré could have been a target for Liverpool in 2024, but now that seems unlikely to happen. It remains to be seen when he will return to action.
So in a short space of time, Mac Allister stepped up in a defensive role against the champions of England and Doucouré suffered a massive injury
blow for Crystal Palace. Both of those developments could be capable of influencing the direction of Klopp’s engine room in 2024.
Speaking about Mac Allister as a defensive midfielder last week, the Liverpool boss said: “I understand that from the outside world it is always about
how is a player in this position? In the end it is all about how the whole team is set up. Is Macca a natural-born six? No. Did football develop in the
last years in directions we couldn’t imagine before? Yes. Does that mean that a player like Macca can play the six? Definitely.
“It depends on how the whole team defends. Easy as that. If we do that properly then we have an incredible player in a central position who can find
passes, a forward-thinking player. I like him there a lot to be honest and we as a team can benefit a lot from it if we make sure we have a really
compact formation and that’s what we especially need tomorrow [against Manchester City].”
The market for holding midfielders is scarce right now, and it seems that with every passing week, Mac Allister’s chances of making that spot his own
continue to grow. He is very different to Fabinho against the ball but with possession, few players can offer the same value as him.
With Doucouré now unlikely to move to Liverpool any time soon, Mac Allister is looking more and more like his team’s heir apparent. Klopp may
have found his solution without needing a blockbuster specialist transfer.
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