Jurgen Klopp reveals Caoimhin Kelleher will start Carabao Cup final
By Sean Walsh
Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that backup goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher will start for Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea at the end of February.
The Reds secured their passage to the showpiece event at Wembley with a 2-0 win in the second leg of their semi-final with Arsenal on Thursday, with Diogo Jota grabbing an impressive brace.
Kelleher made an important save to deny Alexandre Lacazette early and has looked comfortable whenever he's been selected over the past two seasons. His manager has now confirmed that he will be rewarded for his fine form with a start in the final.
“Caoimhin will play, if he is fit,” Klopp said.
“As a football manager you have to consider obviously a lot of things…we consider Caoimhin as an outstanding goalie - not a good goalie, an outstanding goalie - and we want to keep him here.
“To keep him here you need to make sure of a few things; different games he will get, before a season you think about it, you talk about it and it’s all about performing of course. If he wouldn’t have performed on the level he performed when he played I would maybe see it differently, but he shows that he deserves all the trust and faith we have in him. That’s the situation.
“Actually I am a little bit surprised about the question. Not ‘surprised’, but I didn’t think about it properly so I might do that. My idea in this moment is that Caoimhin will play. Let’s see until then but I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t do it, to be honest, because Caoimhin deserves it. He brought the team there.
“Last week against Arsenal [for the first leg] I had to explain, I understood it like I had to explain, to Caoimhin why he was not playing. I usually do not do that, I do not explain to Caoimhin why he is not playing in the Premier League or whatever, but it was his competition and I thought Ali needs the game because of lacking rhythm after COVID and all these kind of things.
“And what I really liked was that Caoimhin was not like, ‘Oh yeah, I understand’, he was like, ‘What? Why?’ so he matures in all departments and that’s good, that’s absolutely good. That is exactly the goalie we wanted.
“I said it before that it is really a [goalkeeping coach] John Achterberg project, I have to say, because when I came here there were not all the people in the club thinking, ‘Caoimhin Kelleher will be the next one.’ There was one person and that was John and here we go.
“That’s a goalie who, if you have to buy it, that’s pretty expensive. So we have now the best in the world and a really, really good one. That’s a good situation.”