Loris Karius left the field at the end of the Champion’s League final in tears. He had gifted Real Madrid two goals and been single-handedly responsible for Liverpool failing to achieve a sixth Champion’s League/European Cup success.

Or had he? Yes, on the night two of the goals were his fault, of that there is no doubt but who was really at fault.

To answer this we must go back to a decision made by his manager to publicly confirm Karius as his number one goalkeeper and, by definition, also confirm that Simon Mignolet would be regarded as second choice.

This was designed to have two effects. The desired one for Karius was to give him the confidence to become a great goalkeeper. For Mignolet, the idea was to test his mettle and see what he was made of although, in truth, Klopp was already giving the impression that he was a bit fed up with the Belgian.

He had made a couple of comments in public with which his manager wouldn’t have been too pleased including suggesting that the goalkeepers needed to know who was the number one.

Mignolet very quickly discovered that it was Karius!

Whether Karius was made number one because Klopp thought he was a better keeper than Mignolet or it was because of Mignolet’s perceived insubordination is debatable because, in truth, neither goalkeeper is really good enough to be number one at a club like Liverpool and if you fancy betting on which goalkeeper may join the Reds to improve their options you can use a Paddy Power Promo Code to get value odds.

Klopp, as many Liverpool supporters will tell you, should have broken the bank and signed a world class goalkeeper shortly after arriving at the club such as Roma’s Alisson or Atletico Madrid’s Jan Oblak. His coaches would have quickly identified the shortcomings of Mignolet but, unfortunately, their solution to that particular problem was to sign Karius.

He had been in England for two years from 2009 when he was a player at Manchester City but, surprise, surprise, he never made the first team. He then went to Mainz, where he had one excellent season, being voted the Bundeliga’s second best goalkeeper behind Manuel Neuer. Even a blind squirrel will occasionally find a nut!

On the strength of this ONE good season, Liverpool took a chance on him and, at £4.7 million, it didn’t seem like a very expensive gamble at the time.

If he is to shoulder all of the blame for Liverpool’s Champion’s League defeat then he has cost the club around €7.5 million as the winners received €90.8 million whilst the runners-up got €83.3 million.

However, as we alluded to earlier it would be unfair to place the entire blame on him. After all, it wasn’t his fault that the club decided to penny-pinch and buy him rather than an established goalkeeper. It wasn’t his fault that Simon Mignolet was too mouthy for his own good which resulted in Karius being given the number one jersey and it wasn’t his fault that the manager selected him for the most important match in years!

So all of these Liverpool “supporters” who are wishing all sorts of vile retribution on a guy who was just trying to do his job, who would love nothing more than to be able to turn the clock back and do it all again, but differently, should all remember who picked the team and where the buck stops.

The reason Liverpool lost the Champion’s League final is because they weren’t as good as Real Madrid. Why weren’t they as good? That is the $64,000 question and it is no good asking Jürgen Klopp for the answer because he has only won ONE final out of the seven his teams have contested. He hasn’t a clue how to win cup competitions, he’s just quite good at reaching the final!

So maybe that’s a clue as to where the blame for this loss lies. Karius’s performance didn’t help the cause but remember who picked the team!