Liverpool’s Alex Manninger has decided to end his professional career and was released by the side after they shared their list of players who’d be retained at the end of the 2016-17 season.
The former Augsburg man joined us on a free transfer at the end of the 2015-16 season but was seen as a squad player mostly. The main keepers for us were Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet, while Manninger was a backup for the pair.
The Austrian keeper didn’t even make one senior appearance for the side and was mostly on the bench for a number of EFL Cup games.
Manninger did have a lot of experience of playing for some of the biggest clubs in the world and was even part of Juventus.
There still is a bit of a doubt as to why he was signed and maybe he will be provided with a coaching role at the club since he was signed on a one-year deal. What will happen now is that there is another spot open in the goalkeeping department of the Reds and Jurgen Klopp now has to deal with a major conundrum.
The future of our goalkeepers
Manninger’s exit means that we would have to keep another keeper in our first-team squad. Simon Mignolet and Loris Karius are our first and second choice keepers while Danny Ward was excellent during his loan spell at Huddersfield.
The Welshman recently stated that he wouldn’t mind a loan move back to Huddersfield Town as he would get regular game time and would also be playing in the Premier League if stays with them.
Manninger staying for another season would have been a good move for us but the Austrian wasn’t getting any playing time here and moving to a coaching position would be ideal for him. He could even return to his homeland and just enjoy some time off. The Austrian’s stay would have given us another year to think about the future of Ward at Liverpool.
All-in-all, there really can’t be much said about the Austrian as he didn’t play for us in any of the senior games but at least he didn’t say much in the media and didn’t cause a storm. He was thoroughly professional and kudos to that.
Hopefully, Klopp can now concentrate on a number of signings coming in as we have been hit hard in recent weeks. We still should be making a number of signings in the summer and mount a challenge for the Premier League title, if we play our cards right.
