He started the season in the team basically through default after the man signed to replace him broke his hand in pre-season. With Loris Karius sidelined, the Mig had the chance to make the jersey his own in the opening weeks of the campaign.
In fairness he didn’t do much wrong but neither did he do anything to make anyone change their opinion of him. The goals conceded were not down to his errors, but he wasn’t making any match winning saves and he didn’t bring any kind of calm assurance to his defence or indeed the crowd, who would often panic as he played one twos with his defenders while under pressure.
Going into the season some fans thought he was useless, others thought he was below average, some *raises hand* thought he was good but not great. Most, if not all, wanted him replaced, so when Karius was fit again it was the right call to put him in, irrespective of how it turned out.
Mignolet had every right to feel harshly treated as he’d done nothing to deserve being benched, but Karius had been signed to take over as number one so Klopp needed to see if he was up the job. As we soon saw for ourselves, he wasn’t, but you don’t know this until you see them in the spotlight.
Mignolet handled his demotion like a pro. One thing you can never criticise him for is his attitude. He’s mentally tough, doesn’t allow mistakes to affect his form and any time he’s been dropped he’s come back stronger for it. It’s one of the reasons I find him easy to root for. I like him, he’s a great lad.
Karius struggled from the get go so Mignolet probably knew it was only a matter of time before he got back in and so it proved. With the benefit of hindsight you could argue that Klopp benching him cost us third place as Karius made costly errors against Bournemouth and West Ham.
The counter to that though is if Mignolet hadn’t been dropped, would he have responded as strongly as he did in the second half of the season? Was the competition for his place the thing that dragged him up a level, or is it simply a case of him improving as he comes into his prime years?
Whatever the reason, Mignolet’s form after regaining his place was impressive. There were one or two bumps on the road. A clanger at Hull set us on the way to a 2-0 defeat and he didn’t cover himself in glory on a David Luis free kick at Anfield in the 1-1 draw against Chelsea. To me that was a minor error and he was not saving that even if he had been prepared for it, but his critics jumped on that and slammed him for it.
Since then? I’m struggling to think of even one minor error. He’s been mistake free, which is important, but more crucially he started to make important saves and displayed assurance under the high ball. He pulled off two brilliant stops to secure three points at Stoke and then another a week later to protect a 1-0 lead at West Brom.
At Watford he didn’t need to be as spectacular but he was certainly solid, dealing with cross after cross after cross. He caught most of them, but those where he wasn’t sure he just punched to safety.
He ended the season as well as anybody in the squad and you can make a case for him being our most improved player.
Best Moment:
The save to deny Berahino against Stoke was one of the saves of the season, but my personal favourite Mignolet moment was a quote he made after that game:
“Phil was struggling so all credit to him to get through the game, to fight and score a goal. He has the quality and the talent to do that even when he’s got diarrhoea.”
Vintage Mig that. What a guy.
Worst Moment:
Flapping at that high ball at Hull and gifting them a goal just before half time with their first attempt of the game.
Rating:
8/10, and if you’re not down with that, I got two words for ya...
The Future?
Even most of his biggest critics would agree that he’s done enough to ensure that he starts next season as number one and that buying a keeper this summer should no longer be a priority. Can he be improved on? Sure. But doing so won’t be easy or cheap as there aren’t too many better keepers out there than the version of Mignolet we’ve seen in the last few months.
It’s still only a small sample size though and he will need to prove he can do it over a much longer period, but for now the job is his and it’s no longer through default. Good for him.
Recommended Comments
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.