Gary Neville believes that Adrian’s temporary role as Liverpool’s first-choice goalkeeper could cause issues for the Merseyside club due to the Spaniard being prone to errors.
Adrian may have made the winning save in a penalty shootout to help Liverpool lift the Super Cup trophy against Chelsea last week, but a mistake against Southampton on Saturday saw him gift Danny Ings a goal and cost him of his side’s clean sheet.
Luckily for Liverpool they were 2-0 up at the time of Adrian’s error and Southampton failed to use Adrian’s mistake to snatch a point away from the European champions.
And until Alisson Becker returns from injury, Neville has suggested that Liverpool fans should get used to their stand-in goalkeeper making errors.
“This is a problem,” said Neville as he watched a replay of Ings’ goal on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football this week [10:36pm].
“Obviously Alisson’s not playing and Adrian is an understudy that is going to make mistakes like that.
“Liverpool deserved to win the game, but the goalkeeping error could have cost them.”
OPINION
Neville’s right but Liverpool have been scoring plenty of goals in the opening games of their season and as long as they are outscoring their opponents, that should be enough. Manchester City and Chelsea both failed to beat the Reds in 90 minutes while Jurgen Klopp’s men hit four past Norwich before Teemu Pukki beat Adrian for a consolation goal and while that Ings goal for Southampton meant things got a little too close for comfort, the Merseyside club managed to prevail. Next up for Liverpool is Arsenal, who have not exactly been free-scoring in their first two games of the season. Arsenal struggled to break down Newcastle’s defence and a mistake by the Magpies was the only thing that led to a goal. At the weekend Burnley also proved tough to break down for Unai Emery’s men, so Liverpool’s defence could cause for similar issues for the Gunners. Hopefully Adrian isn’t called on too much but he is a good shot-stopper, despite his errors.
