John Fallon: Why can’t Caoimhín Kelleher make the grade at Liverpool?
Caoimhín Kelleher has no intention of trading down for an easier working environment. Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
A snippet of Irish football trivia to start the year with, activating the mind after the fallow festive period.
Name the last Irish player before Caoimhín Kelleher’s start against Chelsea on Sunday to be involved in a Premier League match between the big five?
(Tottenham and Everton fans can whine all they want but for clear and obvious reasons, the chosen quintet for the criteria is Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea).
To find the answer, you’ll need a long memory.
Delve back through the archives to discover that John O’Shea’s appearance for Manchester United against Chelsea in May 2011 forms the relic.
That’s a decade, a whole generation in football terms, a burden for any player to carry when they end the drought.
Yet it seems Kelleher would fall over he’s so laid back.
Nothing in the heat of the Stamford Bridge battle, the meeting of second and third in the top-flight, had him frazzled. Pristine footwork, excellent distribution, and a commanding presence between the sticks showed he belonged on the grandest of stages. And all at just age 23 and on his first Premier League start.
Kelleher could do nothing to prevent either of Chelsea’s two goals and he kept the Reds on terms with a couple of second half saves.
Just doing his job, he’d doubtless claim, had the Corkman spoken afterwards. But words instead by Virgil van Dijk and Jordan Henderson testified to the sense of normality. No fuss, just reliability.
It’s in keeping with the broader stance on his career. Kelleher is as relaxed off the pitch, soft-spoken and polite by nature, but began to get visibly irritated by the recurring theme of his last media engagement on Ireland duty in October.
Rather than the narrative be dominated, as intended, by the Leesider making his first senior start the following night against Qatar, question after question contrasted his inactivity at club level with that of Stephen Kenny’s first choice, Gavin Bazunu.
“Becoming second choice behind Alisson is a big thing for me,” he responded, highlighting a different contrast to Bazunu’s development at Manchester City, based around loan moves.
“You have to have that mentality and I want to push on and be No 1. And hopefully, if I get a chance, I’ll take it.
There’s no point being somewhere and not thinking you could be No. 1.”
That assertion was one he christened six years earlier in his first dealings with the Irish press. What might have been construed as delusional cockiness has transferred into modest self-assuredness in the passing of time.
Liverpool have plucked many a teenager from these shores for their academy over the past 25 years and, from afar, Kelleher was being bracketed with the legion that tried but failed to crack their system.
He’s defied the odds and has no intention of trading down for an easier working environment. Either injury or suspension usually create opportunities for back-up stoppers to deputise and it was a hamstring strain to Alisson that provided the initial gateway.
Those three starts — a pair of Champions League group matches against Ajax and FC Midtjylland, sandwiched in between by a Premier League outing with Wolves — introduced Kelleher as a trusty understudy.
Further gaps have occurred through Covid-19, firstly travel restrictions imposed on the Brazilian goalkeeper and from contracting the illness itself, swelling the experience levels of his rookie stand-in.
While another outbreak of the virus within the club has thrown Liverpool’s cup games against Arsenal and Shrewsbury into doubt, there’s no doubting that Jurgen Klopp will continue to prefer the Irishman over veteran Adrian whenever Alisson is unavailable.
That guarantee is enough for Kelleher to resist any clamour from fans or media to agitate for a loan move, either in this window or the end of the season.
If his fellow Corkonian Colin Doyle valued him at €5m last year, the market price has probably doubled since.
Southampton paid €15m to Manchester City in 2018 for Angus Gunn without a Premier League appearance to his name and Kelleher isn’t going to be tempted away to a lesser light merely to replicate his status as prospective first choice.
Fifteen appearances so far for a club that, over the past three years, has won the Champions League and Premier League constitutes an ideal education for a player with at least 15 years of top-level exposure ahead of him.
Liverpool, too, will be content to hang onto a custodian they always had faith in.
A story that relates to his Ireland rival underscores that belief.
During summer 2018, a glut of scouts descended on Tallaght to observe a budding talent line out for Shamrock Rovers.
Klopp’s goalkeeping coach, John Achterberg, was among them for the game against Derry City but opted against competing with Manchester City and Tottenham in bidding for Bazunu.
As much as the visitor admired the 16-year-old’s potential, he wasn’t convinced of his superiority to Kelleher, who by that point was fast-tracked into Liverpool’s first-team.
For his initiation on a pre-season tour to France, Kelleher chose Rick Astley’s classic ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ to belt out on karaoke night.
Perpetuity might be pushing it, but, for the time being, Liverpool and Kelleher are entitled to be wedded, irrespective of what anybody else gossips about their relationship.
Uefa Pro Licence requirement remains an imperfect solution
Waterford’s appointment of Ian Morris ended the managerial upheaval that saw changes at eight of the 19 clubs.
Indeed, only eight of the bosses who started the 2021 campaign are still in situ for the new version kicking off next month.
Those are stark statistics. The League of Ireland isn’t particularly trigger-happy by European standards but the filling of vacancies is influenced by the coaching qualifications. That’s what the FAI tried to encourage when introducing the Uefa Pro Licence as mandatory for managers operating in the top-flight.
Since the first intake of coaches onto the course in 2009, however, rules around its implementation have been fluid. They have oscillated between having to be enrolled on the course, undertaking it, or to have completed it.
Drogheda manager Kevin Doherty and the man he replaced, St Patrick’s Athletic supremo, Tim Clancy, are both participants, along with Derry manager Ruaidhrí Higgins, on the association’s latest version, entitled 2020/2022.
Then there’s the anomaly around whether the decision-maker on the sideline is obliged to have it. Uefa found Dundalk’s Filippo Giovagnoli guilty of “shadow coaching” in 2019, leading to Pro Licence holder Shane Keegan being named manager. It will be interesting to see who is calling the shots at Oriel Park this term. Stephen O’Donnell, still waiting to be accepted onto a Pro Licence course, is head coach while Dave Mackey was drafted in as manager. UCD’s Andy Myler is in a similar situation but the newly-promoted chief has the comfort of his assistant, William O’Connor, being in possession of the golden coaching ticket.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s agency cranks up Irish operation
Transfer windows are a bonanza for agents and the Portuguese firm GestiFute will be to the forefront of Irish activities.
The company founded by Jorge Mendes, whose client base includes Cristiano Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva, and Jose Mourinho, won’t just be involved in Matt Doherty’s potential return to Wolves from Tottenham from their Irish portfolio.
They expanded their scope into the Irish market just over a year ago by headhunting Dundalk’s retired goalkeeper Gary Rogers as their talent-spotter. His first three main recruits from the League of Ireland pool are all poised to land deals in the UK over the month.
Although teenage striker Johnny Kenny agreed a three-year contract extension with Sligo Rovers in November at the end of a season when he scored 11 senior goals, Scottish clubs are prepared to pay the €150,000 release clause. Celtic remain favourites to sign the Ireland U19 forward.
Killian Phillips, who Rogers saw blossom last season while working as Drogheda’s goalkeeping coach, could be on his way to Crystal Palace if a fee can be agreed for the midfielder who is under contract.
Lastly, the league’s leading scorer Georgie Kelly is a free agent and heading abroad this month, with clubs in League One and the SPFL interested.
Contact: john.fallon@examiner.ie
