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Arne Slot All But Confirms That Caoimhín Kelleher Has Lost His Starting Place

Republic of Ireland star Caoimhín Kelleher appears to have finally lost his starting position in the Liverpool team after holding onto the jersey fro several weeks.

Alisson Becker, who is regarded by many as one of the very best goalkeepers on the planet, picked up an injury that ruled him out for an extended period of time, and Kelleher was airlifted into goal, as the team's number one.

The replacement was so seamless however, that there started to be some speculation that the Irishman could keep his place in goal, even when his Brazilian teammate returns.

The Cork native has made some incredible performances in recent weeks, and not only kept a clean sheet against the two biggest powerhouses in world football, Real Madrid and Man City, in consecutive games, he also saved a penalty from Kylian Mbappe.

The Reds sit at the top of the Premier League table, and the Champions League table, and a lot of that has been down to the keeper's reliability in goal.

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However, last week against Newcastle, a rare error by Kelleher resulted in conceding a late goal, and Liverpool dropped valuable two points on the road.

Now with Allison officially back in full training, manager Arne Slot has all but confirmed that he will be returning to the starting line-up against Girona, in tonight's European tie.

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"I think it speaks for itself. If you can play with Alisson, who has been so outstanding for the club for so many years and for the Brazil national team, that is definitely nice to have him back," Slot said at the pre-match press conference.

"But if you then look at how his replacement did it is not going to be easy to do even better. We expect the same, and maybe on margins a bit better but Caoimh did so well we can say we have two good goalkeepers.

"But for so many years Alisson has been so outstanding for this club and we are expecting him to do the same over the next few months."

Speculation around Kelleher's future has been a long-running saga at the club, but it looks likely that the Ireland keeper will be leaving this summer.

However, with Allison's poor injury record always eating away at the back of the manager's mind, the Anfield bosses might not be so willing to let their readymade replacement leave.

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