Freddie Woodman to Start Against Palace | OneFootball

In some ways, being a third-choice goalkeeper is like being a member of Coldplay that isn’t Chris Martin: you get the money and the travel but without any of the stress of people knowing who you are.

In the case of Freddie Woodman, the majority of Liverpool supporters wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a crowd prior to his appearance in the Merseyside derby on Sunday, but now they are going to get a chance to take a closer look at him. The injury to Giorgi Mamardashvili and the continued absence of Alisson Becker mean that he will be starting in goal for the Reds for our forthcoming match against his boyhood club Crystal Palace, where he was once a ball boy.  Indeed the only other time Woodman played this season was also against Palace in the League Cup back in October.

Who Freddie Woodman?

Timmy96, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Frederick John Woodman was born in London on the fourth of March 1997. Standing at six foot two inches, the goalkeeper was part of the Crystal Palace Academy when he was a teenager, being a fan of the London club thanks to the fact that his grandad used to take him to matches and he had been both a ball boy and a mascot when he was younger.

In 2013, Woodman moved to Saudi Arabian-owned Newcastle United, though he spent most of his time with the Magpies on loan at the likes of Hartlepool United and Crawley Town.

Injuries to Newcastle’s main goalkeepers meant that Woodman was the club’s first-choice goalkeeper for the 2021-2022 season, being criticised after an error-strewn afternoon at Old Trafford that resulted in him being sent to the bench once Karl Darlow regained fitness.

He moved to Preston North End in the summer of 2022, which is the club that Liverpool signed him from once his contract expired in 2025. His debut for the Reds came in a 3-0 loss to his former club, Crystal Palace, in the League Cup in the October of last year.

In for Palace

Woodman’s cameo at the Hill Dickinson Stadium might have lured some people into thinking that he’s a top-class goalkeeper when the truth is a touch more complicated than that. There have been reports that he’s a really good guy to have around the training ground, often staying late with Mo Salah to help the Egyptian practice his penalties, which is always great to hear. Yet it doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily going to be able to perform as well as he did on Sunday on a regular basis.

The gash suffered by Mamardashvili to his knee is such that the Georgian is likely to miss around four weeks, with the hope being that Alisson will be back for the trip to Old Trafford. Obviously, it would be great to have one of the best goalkeepers in the world back for the visit to our fierce rivals, but it would also be good to save Woodman from having to go back to the scene of one of his worst performances for his former club. Regardless, the Reds will be depending on him against Crystal Palace, with Champions League football on the line.