Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers may have found very little to be positive about after our draw with West Brom at the weekend, but one thing he can be happy with is the consistently strong performances of Simon Mignolet.
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The Belgian kept his 14th clean sheet of the season at the Hawthorns, and now looks on course to win the golden glove for the first time. With only a handful of games left until the end of the season, his main rival for the award Southampton’s Fraser Forster is out for the rest of the campaign due to injury. If he does go onto win, he will be our first recipient of the prize since Pepe Reina clinched the title in 2008.
However, the chance to win looked such a long way off midway through the campaign, when he was dropped.
The Liverpool Echo report that Rodgers has been extremely impressed with his goalkeeper since he was brought back into the first-team, and hinted that his brief omission from the side has benefited his performances.
“It’s never easy for players when you come to Liverpool, with such huge expectancy. The levels that you’re judged on are very high. I’ve been delighted with Simon since he’s come back into the team, he’s shown wonderful ability, a wonderful assurance,” he said.
However, you could argue that this summer, Rodgers needs to make sure that we bring in a strong back-up choice that could come in and do a good enough job if called upon. Mignolet’s poor form could have been down to complacency, and unfortunately with Brad Jones as an understudy, over-confidence may rear its head again.
If a suitable number two is brought in, the 27-year-old will kept on his toes, and will go into every game aware of the standard he needs to reproduce.