Let’s be honest, things would have to be pretty dire for
Manninger to get a run in the Liverpool team this season. The Austrian, who won
the league with Arsenal in 1998 (deputising for David Seaman, he was given a
medal despite not playing enough games to automatically qualify), was signed as
third-choice keeper to allow the younger keepers, Danny Ward and Ryan Fulton,
to depart on loan, to Huddersfield Town and Chesterfield respectively. But
there is a precedent for unheralded keepers making a home at Anfield.
Brad Jones was picked up in 2010 by then Liverpool manager
Roy Hodgson to contribute to the home-grown player contingent – bizarre for an
Australian, but he graduated from Middlesbrough’s academy. The £2.3m Liverpool
paid Boro for him was the only transfer fee of his career (so far; he’s now at
Feyenoord and perhaps still waiting for that big-money move … at 34), which
can’t have pleased his agent. But he was popular at Liverpool because he just
seemed to love being there so much, and he performed, when called upon, exactly
as you’d expect a third-choice keeper to.
Further back, Paul Jones came to Liverpool’s
rescue in an emergency loan deal in 2004. He played twice, becoming the
club’s oldest post-WW2 debutant. If 39-year-old Manninger gets on the
pitch, he’ll break that record. Let’s hope that, if required, Manninger can be
relied upon to keep up with the Joneses.
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