Ref: Freepngfootballplayer
While I am not a Liverpool fan and used to hate them growing up due to all the bastards on their team. I have to say that with Klopp as manager and the current batch of players, skillful and entertaining it's a lot harder to dislike them now. I will never like them as a team but they are a different breed to the old teams of the 90's and 00's.
Then we have Caoimhín Kelleher. From an Irish point of view it has been great to see a full champions league debut and now premier league debut in the same week.
Not only that but he has excelled in his first proper week as a Liverpool starter and taken it all in stride. Coming into any team will be tough in the beginning but with Liverpool being the current league champions it adds that extra few notches of pressure to keep them winning in a tough year.
On top of that he is minding the goals in front of a temporary defense missing their most vital defenders. From this he has managed two clean sheets in a row and exuded confidence while doing so. It's a marked difference to his previous first team appearances where he had a lot of nervousness and was prone to silly errors of judgement.
Obviously the Liverpool team has been putting a lot of work into him over the past twelve months with the intention of playing him more regularly and having a solid young keeper on the books if and when he is needed.
This has obviously been a good call with Alisson out injured again this season and Adrian not up to the level required for league champions. You win leagues with defense and that includes a top quality goalkeeper as we have seen over the years. Having the wrong one in place will cost you dearly when it counts.
For the national team Darren Randolph has been a great servant to Ireland over the years and one of our most consistent performers for a long time. He won't be getting replaced any time soon but has been around a long time and that leaves a perfect opportunity to take his position before the world cup 2022.
This should be the goal over the next couple of years as Caoimhín gets a lot more caps under his belt and should be making every case to take over the Ireland no1 jersey within two years.
Either way it's great to see some Irish talent at the top clubs again after a long patch without any representation. We have a good batch coming through over the next couple of years and it would be great to see that follow though to the premier league and also the national team for us.