...I was hoping Karius would be that player, and his average position seems to be indeed further up the pitch in comparison to Mignolet, but so far he's failed to impress in the other aspects of his game, including on the ball.
The thing about Karius is that he has to be doing better in the shot stopping department and right now we have two lads who are really failing quite hard in the primary skill of a goal-keeper.
@ Diego and Luke, fully agree that he hasn't shown yet what he can do in a few other aspects of his game, including shot stopping. Though I think, other than the Arsenal game, his distribution (kicking and throwing) has been very good and we've seen him succesfully sweeping quite a few times too, so there's that at least. A lot of that is down to a combination of pressure and wanting to impress.
Without wanting to make excuses, it has been far from easy for Karius since he has come in. The majority of Liverpool fans were sick of the sight of Mignolet in goal and wanted a replacement to come in that would immediately take his place and set the league on fire. That's a huge amount of pressure on a young goalkeeper. That rarely happens when young goalkeepers from other leagues come to the PL. Almost all of them, no matter how good they were in La Liga, The Bundesliga, Ligue 1, ... Needed time to adapt to the PL, time Karius just hasn't had yet (he has played about 7 games in the PL, that's just not enough). Both De Gea and Lloris were benched early on in their careers too for Lindegaard and I think Friedel back then. Should look up some vids of the howlers they made in their early years in the PL.
A quick summary of his Liverpool career so far:
He arrives and gets to play a few games in pre-season where he ends up breaking his hand on Lovren's head. He's out for about 1.5 months (?) and misses the start of the PL. At the end of October 2016, Mignolet is suddenly dropped in favour of Karius, who starts off his Liverpool career with a decent run of games, winning 3 games and drawing 1, conceding 3 in the process (2-4 at Palace and 6-1 against Watford, cracking games). Don't remember him having to make any spectacular saves, but did look shaky on high balls / set pieces, which shouldn't be a surprise at all after having broken his hand and still adapting to the league.
Bring on the Bournemouth game, 4-3. Both the media and the fans are on his and Klopp's back, he's not good enough. The week after, West-Ham at home, 2-2 (Payet's free kick I think?) and he gets dropped. Pressure from both the media and the fans was getting ridiculous and Klopp decides to take him out of the spotlight.
Things settle down a bit and then comes the month January. Karius is given some gametime again against Plymouth and Southampton in the League and FA Cup. Both Southampton games were, in my opinion, his best games for us so far actually. He kept us in that tie on multiple occasions. We get kicked out of both cups and that's his season over.
So far this season, three competitive games: Arsenal, Sevilla and Spartak.
It's just way too early to cast a judgement on the lad, so many keepers take at least a full season to adapt to the PL.
Which begs the question, why why why does Klopp continue to play Migs? Even us amateurs can see he is not the right keeper for our system. It just doesn't make sense at all. It was the same with Rodgers too.
The media and the fans play a big role in that decision for me, mate. I think Klopp still has the belief that Karius can be his long term #1, you don't give CL games to a keeper you don't trust or who you don't think is good enough. Playing the European games takes the spotlight of the English media off of him a bit. With the focus already being on our defence and goalkeeper so much, every foot he'd set wrong would be highlighted and analysed into oblivion. I'm pretty sure Mignolet will be gone after this season and that next season, with Klopp's spine (Van Dijk, Keita, Firmino) hopefully in place, we'll see Karius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UtsMmVUFa8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXtTRokJbKUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVVoC7KgyEThese are full game videos of Karius at Mainz, not just highlights, so you can see both the good and the bad he does. Look at all the 1 vs 1 situations, the distribution, how quick he is across his line (his footwork is so much better than Mignolet's). He is everything we were looking for in a goalkeeper, it just hasn't come out yet and we should give him the time to show us what he can do. Not lable him 'not good enough' after the handful of games he has played for us.