WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Liverpool played reasonably well despite losing the Champion’s League final 3-1 to Real Madrid. They were unlucky to lose Mo Salah to injury in the first half and also had a shot from Sadio Mané come back off a post when, had it gone in, they would have taken a 2-1 lead.

These are the finer details which can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing but, the general feeling is, that Madrid would have won the game even if Salah had not been injured and Mané’s shot had gone in.

Liverpool were undone by two goalkeeping howlers which would have looked out of place in a schoolboy game between under-13s.

The plain fact of the matter is that Liverpool should have bought a new goalkeeper LAST summer after it had become obvious to everybody that neither Karius nor Mignolet were good enough to be number two, never mind number one.

Klopp thought differently and dropped Mignolet to the bench whilst, at the same time, stating publicly that Karius was to be his number one goalkeeper. This was a move designed to instil confidence in the chosen goalkeeper and test the mettle of the demoted one.

There were two problems, however, with these decisions by the manager. Firstly, Mignolet is a moaner. Yes, he is also professional and will try his best when called upon to do so but his best, generally, isn’t good enough and hasn’t been ever since he joined from Sunderland. So to have a goalkeeper who isn’t very good and who will complain to other players at every opportunity isn’t ideal.

Secondly, Klopp had just confirmed, as his number one goalkeeper, a player who isn’t good enough to be in that position. Would he, for example, get into United’s team before De Gea, City’s team before Ederson or Chelsea’s team ahead of Courtois? The simple answer is; no he wouldn’t. In fact he isn’t as good as the number two goalkeepers at any of those clubs!

Loris Karius apologises for not being a very good goalkeeper!

Had Klopp bought a world-class goalkeeper last year then Liverpool may very well have still lost the final of the Champion’s League. As we have already said in previous articles, Real Madrid are very experienced at winning this trophy. Jürgen Klopp isn’t very experienced at winning ANY trophies.

His record is one of getting teams close to winning things but for that, as we all know, there is no cigar!

That said, every top European club with any pretensions of becoming champions of anything usually has a top goalkeeper. It may be a painful lesson but our guess is that Loris Karius has just played his last game for Liverpool and the club will now break the world record transfer fee for a goalkeeper.

Bale to leave Madrid…..?

When interviewed immediately after the Champion’s League final, Gareth Bale had a different outlook than normal on his immediate future.

He trotted out the usual clichés about wanting to play more games and being at a great club but he then tempered those comments by admitting that he would be chatting with his agent very soon about his next move.

This will, no doubt, alert the likes of Manchester United, who seem determined to become a club renowned for taking hand-me-downs from others.

Our opinion on this has not changed and will not change. The stance should be unequivocal. If he is not good enough for Real Madrid then he is not good enough for Manchester United. Let him go back to Tottenham or even to Arsenal or Chelsea but he would be a backward step for a club like United who should be looking at younger players with a view to the longer term.

Gareth Bale seems to have finally worked out that he may get more games if he left Madrid!

And finally…..

Arsenal seem determined that they will only sign big name players. It was a trait started by Arséne Wenger and it appears that Unai Emery is keen to continue down the same road.

He is interested in Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Stephan Lichtsteiner. Before he arrived Stubborn Old Man had already signed Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

This transfer policy ensures the continued employment of the people who put the player’s names on the back of the shirts and certainly challenges Gooner fans to come up with some fancy chants about their new heroes.

It will be interesting to listen to Arsenal fan TV next season!