In the 39th minute of the first game of the season, Alisson went down clutching his calf, forcing Klopp to bring on the new signing Adrian on. Following that he probably had the best start for any Liverpool Goalkeeper of all time (despite Mignolet’s match-winning penalty save against Stoke City on his debut being a close second, he didn’t win the European Super Cup after his fantastic performance) by winning the European Super Cup for Liverpool after saving Chelsea youngster Tammy Abraham’s penalty and ultimately lifting the cup.
After coming down from this incredible high, Adrian started for Liverpool at St Mary’s against Southampton. He started off well making a brilliant save to Yoshida’s downward heading header but ended the game having made a mistake with his feet leading to a goal from ex-Red Danny Ings. Since that game there has been a clear improvement in Adrian’s game from the ground, dinking the ball over players and showing understanding with the Liverpool back four.
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So far this season he’s conceded only 6 goals in the Premier League so far and he has managed to keep 2 clean sheets against Burnley, Chelsea and Sheffield United. Outside of the Premier League he hasn’t done amazingly well, conceding 5 goals in 2 games but he has made some incredible saves in these two fixtures, the notable one being against Napoli. The close range attempt from Mertens after Mario Rui’s dinked cross into the area was saved brilliantly by the keeper and will surely go down as one of his best saves in red. The respect Adrian has showed to the fans after games too does also show his love of this club, to quote Jurgen Klopp “Whoever doesn’t love it, has no heart”. And Adrian surely showed this heart when after the Leicester comeback, he handed his gloves to a little lad in the crowd. Klopp seemed to talk a lot about wanting to have “two number ones” during the Summer and in many post-match interviews in the pre-season he spoke about this. At that point he still had Simon Mignolet as our back-up who hadn’t kept a clean sheet since the 26th of December 2017 and was prone to the occasional error (A David Luiz free kick against Chelsea springs immediately to mind) at that point. It felt like Klopp was almost just saying to keep Mignolet’s morale up and maybe he didn’t truly mean it.
However, now it does feel that Adrian is really making this “two number ones” theory come to life after putting in a few performances even Alisson himself would be proud of.
Now, with Alisson’s return to full training, it looks as though Adrian’s time as our first choice goalkeeper is up.
The Spaniard fitted in brilliantly and has exceeded, let’s be honest, the majority of the fans expectations. When it was announced that we would be signing this ex-West Ham goalkeeper, I didn’t think that he would do so well. I just thought he would play a few cup games but when he was called upon, he answered superbly.
Right now we have the best goalkeeper in the world and the best back up goalkeeper in the world, you couldn’t really ask for more, and with what is beginning to look like a huge season for Liverpool Football Club, he’s exactly what we need.
Article by Ben Taylor – @bensgtaylor
