GIVE THE YOUNG KEEPER A BREAK

SOMETIMES it is easier to criticise a footballer than stand up for one. Especially when he is making mistakes. Liverpool’s Loris Karius is certainly making mistakes. One at Bournemouth, another at home to West Ham on Sunday. Already, they have been costly for Jurgen Klopp’s side. Karius, though, finds himself under fire for more than failing to catch a couple of footballs. The 23-year-old, new to first-team life at a really big club, has been criticised for something he said in an interview with this newspaper last week. Gary Neville and his brother Phil have both said their piece on TV. So, too, Sportsmail columnist Jamie Carragher. They believe Karius was wrong to respond last week to their criticism of his play at Bournemouth. They feel he was wrong to say he did not care for Gary Neville’s opinions. So here is the bit where we stand up for him. Here is the bit where we provide some context. I conducted the interview with the young German last week. Twenty minutes in, I asked him about Neville and Karius responded. This is what he said: ‘I don’t care what Gary Neville said. He was a top player, then he was a manager for a short bit and now he is back to being an expert again. He is always very critical. I think he does it to everyone. I just hope that when I do well he will comment on that. We will see in the future.’ From a 50-minute interview, that part took up about 35 seconds. Karius was not animated or emotional. He just answered the question. I have done enough player interviews to know when someone is aggravated or wound up, when they want to make a point. I have also listened to enough players who are simply too scared or disinterested to answer a straight question with a straight answer. This fell into neither category. Karius was just being a grown-up. He was just having a conversation with a tape recorder running. The interview, conducted in Liverpool city centre last Thursday, had been arranged prior to the Bournemouth game. I actually thought he would cancel it or that his club would. Football’s default response to misfortune these days is often to say nothing, hide away until better days. It is easy to sing when you are winning. Much harder to front up when you have just made a mug of yourself live on TV. But Karius fronted up. He owned up. Put his hands up, no pun intended. The theme of the interview was not Gary Neville. It was about hope, regret, ambition and learning from mistakes. Then we talked about his interesting background. Maybe not everybody had the patience to read that far down. I hope his critics did. So the context here is that Karius is not a guy looking to pick a fight with one of our most respected pundits. He is a guy merely looking to stick up for himself. Both Nevilles and indeed Carragher believe he should not have done this. ‘Just shut up and play,’ said Carragher on Sky on Sunday. I can see their point and I don’t doubt their motives. They are honest men and part of a wave of modern analysts who have taken football punditry to a new level. But let’s not kill a young goalkeeper for having the temerity to sit down and talk. And let’s not pretend we all know why he said what he said. There were only two people in the room . . . and I was one of them.