Stephen Kenny: It's time for Caoimhin Kelleher to leave Liverpool

PASTURES NEW? Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny and goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher. Pic: Alex Nicodim/Sportsfile

Stephen Kenny has declared that Caoimhin Kelleher will be leaving Liverpool this summer in an attempt to play regular first-team football.

The Cork-born goalkeeper has been with the English Premier League club since joining the academy from Ringmahon Rangers in 2015 but has found game time elusive at a club where Brazil’s Alisson continues to be number one.

The 24-year old’s start against Southampton on the last day of the season just ended was just his fourth appearance for the club in the 22/23 campaign. All told he has featured just 21 times across the last four years with Liverpool.

The flip side is the experience he has amassed playing with world-class players and under Jurgen Klopp. There has been success on Merseyside too, not least with his starring role in the Carabao Cup success last season.

“It looks like he will be on the move this summer and it can only benefit him because he needs to play games,” said Kenny after naming the 25-man squad for this month’s Euro 2024 qualifiers away to Greece and at home to Gibraltar.

“He has been starved of games this year and it has been a problem for him. He is very, very talented and it is hard to leave Liverpool. It is such an iconic club but he’s not so young now. He’s 24 and he needs to play and he knows that.” 

Kenny confirmed that he had spoken to Kelleher about this lack of game time and went further by revealing that the player had been “in dialogue” with Liverpool about the same issue for a considerable period of time.

His conviction that Kelleher will be swapping employers was total.

“Yes, I would fully expect that. It's not right normally to speak about a player moving, but he's at the stage where he's behind probably one of the best goalkeepers in the world and it's not going to get any easier.

“He can't afford not playing. He knows that and he's known that for a while. It's not easy. There's a process you go through with a club like that and it wouldn't be a surprise for him to move in the summer and he knows that.

“I think he's ready to go and play regularly because he needs to. The previous season, they'd been successful, winning the Carling Cup (sic), winning the cup competitions, a lot of matches. They were knocked out early this year, not so much football for him and he needs it.” 

What Klopp make of this will be interesting.

Kelleher is, unfortunately, far from alone in terms of Republic of Ireland internationals who will be reporting for duty on the rusty side ahead of this month’s Euro 2024 qualifiers away to Greece and at home to Gibraltar.

Gavin Bazunu lost his place with relegated Southampton in the spring and Mark Travers’ impressive display for Bournemouth against Everton last weekend was his first opportunity between the sticks in almost five months.

And that’s just the goalkeepers.

Matt Doherty has been a key member of Kenny’s side but he has found first-team football all but impossible to source at Atletico Madrid where he has had just 17 minutes across two appearances since joining from Tottenham Hotspur.

The Dubliner is out of contract once the Spanish club finishes its season against Sevilla this weekend and, as with Bazunu, Kelleher and others, Kenny will use the upcoming training camp in Turkey to evaluate their mental and physical readiness.

“Listen, I won’t lie to you, I would much rather have them playing and it is much tougher when they are not playing,” said the Ireland manager before the team’s nine-day get-together in Antalya. “It’s not a perfect scenario at all.

“I’m sure when (Doherty) took that move he knew he would find it hard for games but he thought he would play an amount of games, for sure. He couldn’t have envisaged that he wouldn’t play at all. That was frustrating for him and tough mentally to deal with.” 

It’s 12 months since Kenny suffered a devastating defeat in Armenia. Another hot potato awaits in Athens when they face the Greeks and attempt to build on the positives that came with the 1-0 defeat to France in their group opener.

It wouldn’t be an Irish game under Kenny without someone asking if this latest examination is a must-win but he has faced enough of those hard-ball enquiries to frame the answers in a softer tone.

“It’s a game that we would want to win, for sure, that’s what we would like. We would like a big away victory and Greece are a formidable team in terms of the fact that they won their four games in the group last year.

“They beat Northern Ireland and they are a team that really improved under their manager and they are expansive, 4-3-3, they are already in the playoff so they have nothing to lose. They are quite attacking so we will absolutely make sure we get ourselves in the best possible condition to play and go for a big away win.”