As Alisson Becker suffers another injury setback, we’re reminded of how often and ably Caoimhin Kelleher has had to step up for Liverpool…
OF all the jobs and roles in the game, the strangest surely has to be that of the goalkeeper understudy.
I mean, you sit on the bench for months on end with little hope of making it onto the pitch then, suddenly, a pinged hamstring later and you’re thrown into the limelight and expected to be as ready to win games.
Sometimes, it works a treat. And then sometimes…
Let’s look at Pegguy Arphexad.
He had one of the strangest careers of any player in the modern age. For those too young to remember the former French U21 international, he was signed by Gerard Houllier in the summer of 2000 along with future legends Marcus Babbel, Gary McAllister, Nick Barmby and, least, Bernard Diomede.
Arphexad’s audition came a month or so earlier when a series of saves helped his Leicester City side eke out an unlikely win at Anfield — a 0-2 pretty much denied us Champions League football for the following season. Houllier never forgot that and signed him up on a free.
Over the next three seasons, Arphexad won six trophies in a red (green) shirt — a haul which included two League Cups, an FA Cup, a UEFA Cup, a Charity Shield and a UEFA Super Cup. Six times he lifted various cups and shields above his head while donning a Liver bird on his chest. Pretty decent.
More? Well, he also finished on the winning side in every Liverpool game he played. A 100 per cent winning record. All this, but hardly anyone would remember him.
There’s a reason for that.
Pegguy Arphexad played only six games for Liverpool. Six in three seasons. Two league, two League Cup and two in Europe. That’s it. He didn’t get onto the pitch for any of his trophy wins — he was always there as an unused substitute. He barely got on the pitch at all.
That was the way of his career, though. As a stand-in goalkeeper he amassed a huge 39 league starts from 1989 and 2005. Over half of them came at Filbert Street.
Pegguy Arphexad had to overcome Sander Westerveld in the Liverpool goal to get minutes – a keeper who was eventually publicly binned by his manager. Pity poor Caoimhin Kelleher. He has to oust the possible greatest footballer in our history to get onto the pitch.
But Caoimhin Kelleher will be fine.
There’s a natural urge to panic when keepers get injured. Somehow, we suppose that they don’t train or something and are as worried as we are. True, lack of game time can make people stale, but they’ve also been training for months on end for this very eventuality. They’re not sat on the bench with a crossword book on their laps.
Caoimhin Kelleher will be absolutely fine.
We know this because he’s already proven himself. He too has two League Cup winners’ medals. What’s more, he was on the pitch for his. He had to be. He scored the winner in one of them.
I mean, we all prefer to see Alisson Becker between the sticks, but it’s not that bad. Erm, something about the England goalkeeper. He’s good, isn’t he?
Kelleher has 49 starts in the various competitions and he also has 17 for Ireland. Pegguy would have been knackered after posting up those sort of numbers.
Admittedly, the timing of Alisson’s injury could be better. Chelsea, Leipzig and then Arsenal isn’t the most relaxed of weeks, but this is a lad who’s played against Chelsea more than anyone else, in terms of minutes anyway. He’s won trophies off them. I doubt he’ll be phased by what’s to come.
He’ll just need a strong crowd behind him. That means the world to keepers.
Remember the opening game of the league-winning campaign at home to Norwich when Ali went off injured and Adrian, a man who had been training alone in his local park weeks earlier, came on to a tumultuous reception? Almost like 1979 Dalglish had ran on? That moment set the tone for the season. We were bigger than the problem we’d been set.
It makes a difference.
Pegguy Arphexad now works in sports insurance apparently and not, as is often rumoured, in certain ‘biological documentaries’.
I hope he’s resting well.
Go ed, Kweev.
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Caoimhin Kelleher’s League Cup Final Journey: #FREEPodcast
Three years ago today Caoimhin Kelleher made his debut for Liverpool, so here’s a FREE podcast we did tracing his journey from Ringmahon Park to Wembley…
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— The Anfield Wrap (@TheAnfieldWrap) September 25, 2023
