Blame Klopp not Karius

THAT the game came to a close in somewhat farcical circumstances seemed apt to those of us of a Liverpool persuasion. The man scarpered his way towards the action with two burly security men in hot pursuit.

Just before the referee blew the whistle, the security men brought the pitch invader to ground. Cristiano Ronaldo – on the cusp of decorating yet another European final with a goal – turned around and shot a withering glare towards the man, by then no-doubt enjoying his fifteen seconds of fame.

And with that it was over. An ignominious end to a desperately disappointing final for Reds everywhere. The camera quickly panned away from the pitch-invader and towards to face of a broken man – Loris Karius.

It was much more the Karius final than the Gareth Bale final. Given that Bale had scored one of the all-time great goals to secure this title for his side – although still not as good as his manager’s goal against Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow if you ask us – that’s saying something.

Nobody has witnessed an implosion quite like it from a goal-keeper. On German TV former FC Bayern shot-stopper Oliver Kahn opined that “I can’t remember having experienced something more brutal from a goalkeeping point of view than in this final.”

Kahn meant brutal in terms of its sheer cruelty and, unquestionably, it was cruel. Nobody deserves to have happen to them what happened to Karius, not with the entire world watching on and judging.

Karius must have felt desperately alone in that moment. No Liverpool player went to console him. Nothing sinister in that, they were too caught up in their own grief to react to their team-mate’s needs straight away (they later did).

The opprobrium – hatred even – that’s been sent his way by certain ‘fans’ since then has been totally out of order. Nobody deserves that, least of all a twenty four year old footballer who’s only partially responsible for what happened last weekend.

Yes, he did basically throw the ball directly at Karim Benzema and, yes, he did make a complete hash of Bale’s speculative drive late in the game, but to focus entirely on that and to ignore the role his manager played in putting him there in the first place is to miss the point.

The Karius catastrophe is Klopp’s catastrophe too. Klopp has had three years to sort out the goalkeeping issue and, while he did bring in Karius the summer before last, has essentially failed to tackle the issue head on. He persisted with Simon Mignolet, until he didn’t. He gave Karius a run of games and then when Karius slipped up it was back to Mignolet. There was a good reason why Klopp couldn’t quite make up his mind – neither goalkeeper was up to it and now he’s paid the ultimate price for it. It’s not like he wasn’t warned. The fault lies with him.