Besides saving a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, little gets Caoimhín Kelleher animated, but the mask could slip at Anfield on Sunday on his return to the club where he learnt to be a professional footballer. “When he makes a save, he doesn’t feel the need to let every person in the stadium know that there’s been a shot, like some goalkeepers do,” Brentford’s head coach Keith Andrews says.
Public displays of emotion by defenders going about their job of destroying and preventing are all the rage and there have been plenty of opportunities for chest-thumping and badge-kissing for Kelleher this season with Ireland and with Brentford still competing for a European place going into the final day of the season.
Behind the scenes, there are signs of Kelleher being more demonstrative. Damien Duff recently remarked that he had his first conversation with the goalkeeper when he was on a four-day fact-finding visit to the club, even though they worked together previously with Ireland.
However, as Andrews says, “you shouldn’t underestimate Caoimhín. He is actually very, very dry-witted.”
Liverpool, though, will stir up some different emotions. Kelleher was a guest at Diogo Jota’s wedding almost a year ago, then two weeks later was returning to Porto for his former Liverpool team-mate’s funeral after Jota and his brother Andre were killed in a car crash in northern Spain. Kelleher and Jota had bonded off the pitch, sharing a love of darts, snooker and horse racing, which initially took Kelleher somewhat by surprise.
Kelleher said a few months ago that it had actually been easier for him than some of his former Liverpool team-mates to deal with the loss as he was away from the club and he suggested that Jota’s death was a factor in Liverpool’s poor season.
A lot has happened in Kelleher’s life in the past year. He got engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Eimear Murphy, in the same month Jota got married and in late February the couple celebrated the birth of twins. That explains Kelleher’s absence from one league game this season for Brentford, the 4-3 defeat of Burnley, when the Iceland international Hakon Valdimarsson was between the posts.
Ronaldo had a penalty saved by Kelleher last OctoberGetty
As well as nailing down the No 1 position with Brentford, Kelleher has also cemented himself as Ireland’s first-choice goalkeeper after a series of injuries to Gavin Bazunu and played a key role in Ireland’s run to the World Cup play-offs, including that excellent save with his left boot against Ronaldo in Lisbon.
No surprise that Andrews is delighted with his performances. “I did have really high expectations of Caoimhín, but he’s certainly lived up to them and some,” he adds.
Andrews was set-piece coach when Kelleher signed for Brentford just under a year ago, with Thomas Frank still the head coach. Andrews and Nathan Collins both spoke to Kelleher before he signed. “I gave him some honest advice,” the coach says. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it, that I did think it was the perfect place for him to come. I didn’t know I was going to be the head coach at that time, but there was a very close overlap.”
When Frank promptly left to join Tottenham Hotspur, taking some staff with him and with a number of star players also leaving, Kelleher might have wondered if it was the perfect place, with Brentford being widely tipped for relegation. If he did, he never let on. He was grieving for Jota and his brother.
“For Caoimhín that would have hit him hard, undoubtedly. Naturally when you come into our environment, we were obviously at a very different place then, where everything was finding its feet, but we always try to be very supportive of any of our players in such circumstances,” Andrews says.
Kelleher struggled for game time under Klopp at LiverpoolAFP
As the season started, the unflappable aura which Kelleher maintained helped bolster confidence in the team and those who underestimated Andrews had to re-evaluate as Brentford scaled new heights in the Premier League.
Still at Brentford, it is not really about winning medals, just steady development to further establish this small west London club in the Premier League and for Kelleher, personally to become a recognised top-flight goalkeeper, rather than the best No 2 in the world as his former coach Jürgen Klopp once described him at Liverpool.
The first medal that Kelleher won at Liverpool was a Champions League one in 2019, though he did not play in that campaign, but he did have important roles in some of the subsequent Liverpool triumphs, including two League Cups, an FA Cup and the Premier League title last season. Wembley was becoming like a second home to Kelleher.
Ultimately, though, Liverpool signed Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia and signalled he would be the goalkeeper to replace Alisson Becker, which was the cue for Kelleher to move to Brentford. With all the psychodrama going on at Liverpool, Kelleher has now started amassing an impressive number of Premier League games.
“It was always going to be the challenge of the rhythm of playing every week, the way his training week looks was very different to being a number two,” Andrews says. “The intensity that you play at, the decision-making, the different scenarios. Liverpool in years gone by would dominate games, and his focus and attention would have to be slightly different.
“It’s a totally different dynamic, the test that he gets here compared to the tests he got at Liverpool. But he has dealt with that really well and grown as the season’s gone on. Always puts the team first in everything he does. He’s been such a good signing by the club. I’m sure there are a lot of clubs out there that are pretty envious.”
Kelleher, here saving a Bruno Fernandes penalty in September, has been an integral past of Brentford’s push for EuropeReuters
There have been hiccups. Earlier this month against Crystal Palace, Kelleher was culpable for both Palace goals, giving away a penalty when he pulled down Ismaïla Sarr and then letting an Adam Wharton shot squirm under his body. While Brentford twice came back to level and claim a point, such fine margins could be what a place in Europe is decided upon.
Statistically, apart from his excellent record as a saver of penalty kicks, Kelleher is in the mid-rank of Premier League goalkeepers. Ten clean sheets achieved this season mean another big financial bonus for Ringmahon Rangers due to the clever bargain the Cork club struck when he was sold to Liverpool in 2015.
According to Opta, only Robin Roefs at Sunderland has been busier when it comes to attempting to save shots on target (103 saves by Kelleher, from 148 efforts). Kelleher has a save percentage of 67.5, which is ninth on the list. In the less tangible category of “expected goals prevented” Kelleher is 13th on a list (0.15) headed by Bart Verbruggen of Brighton & Hove Albion (6.3). Rough signposts but at Brentford, the 27-year-old is certainly at the right club to improve further.
With Mamardashvili having a difficult time in Alisson’s absence because of a hamstring injury (he could return this weekend) and a move to Juventus for the Brazilian seemingly on the cards, some of Kelleher’s most fervent admirers in Ireland and on Merseyside reckon that Liverpool may try to buy him back.
However, it is not thought there is a buy-back clause in the contract. Kelleher’s return to Anfield on the final day is more a chance to remember rather than conjure up any visions of him returning on a permanent basis.
Liverpool v Brentford
Sunday, kick-off 4pm
Sky Sports+