Manager suggests 22-year-old who Klopp called a ‘top footballer’ needs to quit Liverpool

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Caoimhin Kelleher had quite an excellent first real season at Liverpool.

The 22-year-old Irishman made his Premier League and Champions League debut for the Reds during the 2020-21 campaign.

And the young goalkeeper particularly impressed for Liverpool in the latter competition following a stunning performance in the home win over Ajax back in December, with Alisson out injured.

After the game, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp labelled him a ‘top footballer‘ but Stephen Kenny, the Republic of Ireland manager, has suggested that the youngster’s international career may be benefited by leaving Anfield during the summer.

As talented as Kelleher is, he isn’t going to be playing regularly ahead of Alisson under Klopp anytime soon.

And Kenny, speaking to Sky Sports, has intimated that the player should consider leaving Merseyside in some capacity.

He said: “Caoimhin got some games at Liverpool – but it’s very, very hard to play at Liverpool because you’ve got one of the top goalkeepers in the world, Alisson, playing ahead of him and it is difficult.

“Ideally, you’d want Caoimhin to go and play regular games because he’s probably potentially one of the best goalkeepers that we’ve had, and yet we won’t know that unless he continually plays games, so that’s interesting.”

Kenny may be right

Despite only playing five times under Klopp this past season, Kelleher made Kenny’s squad for upcoming friendlies and it’ll be fascinating to see whether he can stake a claim in the absence of injured Darren Randolph.

The Irish manager is right in saying that it’s going to be hard to pick Kelleher long term if he’s on the bench every week.

Even then, Adrian might be staying at Liverpool and therefore it may be a toss-up between the two to see who is Alisson’s understudy next term.