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Gary Neville says Jurgen Klopp avoided ‘catastrophic’ situation at Liverpool by offloading two players
Liverpool wouldn’t have won the Premier League “in a million years” had Jurgen Klopp kept faith with Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet, according to Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville.
Prior to Alisson Becker’s arrival at Anfield, Karius and Mignolet kept goal for the Reds, with Klopp alternating between the two, but neither stood out as world-class players.
In 2018, Liverpool signed Alisson for £65million, and the rest is history, the Reds going up a level with the Brazilian in between the sticks.
The 28-year-old has helped Liverpool win the Premier League, the Champions League, the FIFA Club World Cup and the UEFA Supercup, as well as helping Brazil win the 2019 Copa America.
Neville, alongside Jamie Carragher, put together their Premier League Team of 2020 on Sky Sports, and Alisson made the cut as the Manchester United icon said his influence was transformative.
“They were never going to win the league, never going to win the league with the previous goalkeepers in a million years,” Neville said on Monday Night Football. “Never. Not going to happen!
“That’s eight, ten or 15 points there. Honestly, you cannot quantify it. It’s just a guess.
“But in your mind, you just know that when a goalkeeper makes an error, the impact it has on the defence is catastrophic.
“Then it just builds. That nervousness just builds. And all of a sudden the crowd starts to go. He [Alisson] is a brilliant goalkeeper.”
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Harsh as it may sound, Neville is right – neither Karius nor Mignolet were what Liverpool needed to go to the next level, which is what Alisson has done.
The Brazilian was briefly the world’s most expensive goalkeeper after Liverpool paid Roma for his services, and he’s been so good that few will question whether it was money well spent.