Karius Instagram Video Was Reportedly “Last Straw” For Many Teammates

Over time, certain fanbases must feel like de facto experts in certain aspects of the game. Stoke City fans can probably tell you about the finer points of long throw-ins and booting opponents off the park. Tottenham fans can tell you about being continually overlooked. Manchester City fans can tell you how great it is to have plastic banners waiting for you in your seat ahead of a big game.

And Liverpool fans have become connoisseurs of goalkeeping blunders. We’ve seen Mignolet come out for a cross, only to hopelessly flap at it and be left in no-man’s land. We’ve recently seen Alisson Cryuff turn himself into a hot mess.

And of course, Loris Karius.

Under the circumstances, by which I mean concussed after a Sergio Ramos elbow, some might want to give Karius the benefit of the doubt. This includes Klopp, who openly spoke about wanting to give him a shot at redemption.

However, for some of the players, it appears one off-the-pitch goalkeeping blunder was enough to forever tarnish Karius’s reputation. I’m speaking about his infamous Instagram video of him in California during the offseason, training, enjoying the sun, and eating ice cream. According to Dominic King at the Daily Mail, it was the last nail in the coffin for many of his teammates.

“The dressing room is the best place to gauge what is happening and the universal approval of the qualities that Alisson has brought means the men around him have total faith,” King writes. “This also shows why Loris Karius had to move on.

“Slowly but surely, his actions led to trust being eroded and, for some, the video he posted to Instagram in July of him exercising and eating ice cream in California was the final straw.

“That was a time for self-awareness, to keep his head down and work but he continued to make himself a story.”

There is probably some truth to this narrative. Even without being in the dressing room, that video was cringeworthy under the circumstances. Maybe he and his agent thought it would be best to show himself training and moving forward, but the optics were all wrong.

We may never know the full story of what went on behind the scenes, but Klopp would no doubt be interested in what his players thought of Karius’s reaction. Perhaps, it was one of the reasons that ultimately saw Mignolet picked as Alisson’s deputy over Karius.