Can Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili take his chance against Chelsea after Alisson Becker’s injury?

There was an air of resignation about Alisson Becker as he lay on the turf of Galatasaray’s Rams Park Stadium, one arm raised, after denying Victor Osimhen early in the second half of Liverpool’s Champions League defeat on Tuesday night. 

In backpedalling desperately before diving low to his left to gather the striker’s effort, the Liverpool goalkeeper, not for the first time, won the battle but lost the war, preventing a goal but injuring himself in the process.

Arne Slot, the Liverpool manager, implied following his side’s 1-0 loss that the 32-year-old Brazil international had suffered a hamstring problem. 

How have Liverpool done previously when Alisson has been injured?

Should that diagnosis be confirmed, it will be the third such injury Alisson has sustained in as many seasons. He missed 26 games for club and country last term after damaging a tendon in his hamstring, and 15 over the course of the previous campaign.

On those occasions, Caoimhin Kelleher proved an able understudy, playing a key role for Liverpool as he added League Cup and Premier League winners’ medals to his Anfield trophy haul.

With the Republic of Ireland stopper now at Brentford, however, the spotlight will fall on Giorgi Mamardashvili when Liverpool travel to Chelsea on Saturday evening. For the 25-year-old Georgian, who arrived from Valencia this summer in a £29m deal agreed last year, it is familiar territory. 

How Giorgi Mamardashvili became first choice at Valencia

When Mamardashvili joined Valencia in the summer of 2021 on a season-long loan from Dinamo Tbilisi, it was essentially as backup to first-choice keeper Jasper Cillessen and the long-serving Jaume Domènech. Pre-season injuries to those players cleared the path for an immediate promotion from the reserves, however, and a run of six La Liga games followed, starting with a clean sheet in a home win over Getafe.

Mamardashvili lost his starting place when Cillessen returned to fitness, but by the following February he had forced his way back into the reckoing. He did not look back, going on to make the position his own as he forged a reputation as one of the brightest young goalkeeping prospects in Europe.

It remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself at Anfield, where Alisson is widely regarded as one of the finest players in his position the club has ever seen. Mamardashvili does not lack confidence, however, and has made no secret of his ambition to be No 1.

Giorgi Mamardashvili aims to make history repeat itself at Liverpool

“My next step will be the same as it was in Valencia,” he told the Georgian football channel Geo Sport this summer. “I will go and prove it and do what I can. The main thing is patience, training and hard work. Everything else will come by itself.”

So far, there is limited evidence on which to judge the strength of those claims. Mamardashvili made an assured debut in last month’s League Cup win over Southampton, pulling off a brilliant reflex save early in the game, commanding his area, and keeping his distribution neat and simple. Against Galatasary, meanwhile, he was rarely called into action as Liverpool pushed for a second-half equaliser.

This weekend’s trip to Chelsea promises a challenge of a very different order. After consecutive league defeats against Manchester United and Brighton, Enzo Maresca’s men need the points every bit as much as Liverpool, whose early-season bubble was burst by last weekend’s reversal at Crystal Palace.

That setback ended a run of five straight league wins for Slot’s side, while Tuesday night’s lacklustre performance in Istanbul offered mounting cause for concern about a team that has repeatedly relied on late goals this season. 

A third loss in seven days in eight days is unthinkable for Liverpool, who will need Mamardashvili to stand up and be counted come Saturday tea-time.