The size of the fee that brought the Brazilian keeper Alisson Becker to Liverpool from AS Roma of Serie A raised a few eyebrows this summer, with the £67m fee involved making him the most expensive goalkeeper in the world for a short time until Chelsea topped it to bring in Kepa Arrizabalaga shortly thereafter.
But the 26-year-old has proved his worth time and again in a Red shirt, not least tonight when he pulled off a last-gasp save to keep them in the Champions League with the competition moving into the knockout stages.
In the final game of the Group C at Anfield Liverpool led Napoli by the narrowest of margins and, with the game ticking into its last few minutes, a goal for the Italians would have left the Reds needing a miracle to go through.
A ball looped over the defence in front of Alisson during those nervy last moments and left the Polish striker Arkadiusz Milik in enough space to take the wind out of the collective sails of the home crowd, but their Brazilian stopper stood tall to turn away his effort and the team held on.
The money splashed out on Alisson and Virgil van Dijk, while they might have given some supporters a touch of vertigo, has had a transformative impact on Jurgen Klopp’s side.
The Reds have the joint-best defensive record of any team in Europe’s top leagues, with that solidity giving the talent the possess further up the pitch a platform to perform.
