I feel sorry for Loris Karius, because he will be absolutely heartbroken after his nightmare display in the Champions League final - but I don't see any way back for him at Liverpool now.
Karius had an awful night and it was horrible to watch the Reds goalkeeper completely alone in his penalty area at the end of the game. The Real Madrid players were the first to console him, followed by a member of the Liverpool coaching staff.
I know from experience that when you lose a big game as a player, you sometimes need a few minutes to collect your thoughts, and those are times you are really just thinking about yourself.
But surely one of his team-mates could have gone over, put their arm round him and given him a big hug - even if they did not know what to say.
I am sure they did that back in the dressing room, once they got over their disappointment, and his manager will have a quiet word and support him too.
But, even if Klopp backs him publicly as well as privately, he must know that he is not good enough for Liverpool and what they want to achieve.
You need a top goalkeeper to win trophies and he is not one of those. Can they afford to keep playing him, thinking he might become one? No. Karius always looks like he has a mistake in him, and that cost them dearly on Saturday night.
Karius lacks focus - and not for the first time
We have all made errors that have cost goals and although Karius's first one, when he threw the ball at Karim Benzema, was a massive howler, it was also a little bit of a fluke.
However, his second mistake, when he fumbled Gareth Bale's shot over the line, was something I don't think he can recover from.
As Jurgen Klopp said afterwards, I don't think he would have done it if he had not made the first error, because he clearly wasn't over that despite Liverpool equalising soon afterwards.
I just wonder if he lacked a little bit of concentration because he knew he had messed up massively for Real's first goal, and it would not be the first time that had happened.
He got away with something similar in the first leg of Liverpool's semi-final win over Roma, when Aleksandar Kolarov's shot slipped through his grasp, but the ball hit the bar. On Saturday, he was not so lucky.
It is not just focus that Karius lacks because technique-wise, he is flawed too.
One of the things I have noticed with him is that he parries everything that comes at him, which is fine, but he sends the ball straight back to where it has come from instead of to the side of the goal.
It almost cost Liverpool a goal in the first half against Real when, in making a great save to deny Cristiano Ronaldo, he pushed the ball out to Benzema, who put the ball in the net but was offside.
I don't know whether or not Liverpool thought they would need a new goalkeeper this summer, but they are going to have to address that situation now.
Stoke's Jack Butland might be a possibility. He did not have a great season but he would be a better option than Karius or Simon Mignolet are now, and something needs to change.
The calls we had on 606 after the final backed up my feeling that, even if Klopp does give Karius a vote of confidence by continuing to pick him - and I'd be shocked if he does - then any faith that the Reds fans had him has gone.
At Anfield, the Liverpool supporters will just be waiting for him to make another mistake - and can you imagine the stick he will get when he goes to away games?
That's why I cannot see him being in the Liverpool team on the opening weekend of next season.
Source: BBC



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