The Everton goakeeping legend discusses the current Reds number one ahead of Sunday’s highly-anticipated Merseyside derby in the Premier League.
The city of Liverpool is bracing itself for the big day as red and blue prepare to collide.
On Sunday, the Reds welcome Everton to Anfield in the Premier League as both sides seek to seize bragging rights and three points.
Liverpool are largely deemed favourites to win by virtue of their great form, testament to Jurgen Klopp’s impressive summer recruiting to bolster a squad which was almost there but not quite.
The position that perhaps needed addressing the most was that of goalkeeper, with last season’s first-teamers Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet both coming under criticism time and time again from a number of Reds fans and pundits.
Alisson Becker was signed from Roma for a fee reported by the Giallorossi to be a world record £66.8million, and following a few minor teething issues, the Brazilian has gone on to impress for his new club, keeping a clean sheet every other game so far.
However, Everton goalkeeping legend Neville Southall has played down Alisson’s exploits so far, claiming that the 26-year-old still needs to settle and pointing out that he has been “caught out” on occasion.
In his latest iNews column, the 60-year-old wrote: “Alisson Becker, he looks big, he looks solid but he needs time to settle. He’s taken a couple of chances in games and been caught out but he’s helped by the fact Liverpool’s defence has got so much better as well. He’s definitely different from the other two they had.”
Southall is actually fairly complimentary of Alisson in comparison to Karius and Mignolet, to whom he delivers somewhat harsher judgements.
“Loris Karius was really slow when he first came into the team,” the Welshman continued. “He made mistakes because he was so slow in what he was doing, and it took him a while to get used to the pace of the game.
“I thought Simon Mignolet was half-decent but if he hadn’t done anything for a while he’d go chasing stuff to do and you can’t do that.”
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