Report: Loris Karius linked to back-up role behind Manuel Neuer at Bayern Munich

Per a new report from Sport1, Loris Karius is one of the goalkeepers that Bayern Munich is potentially interested in bringing in this summer to be a backup for Manuel Neuer. Alexander Nübel has been heavily linked with a loan move away to AS Monaco this summer. Nübel has not been getting any playing time at Bayern, despite reportedly having a clause in his current contract that states he would be getting at least 10 matches this season.

Karius’ career didn’t exactly take off when he moved from Mainz 05 to Liverpool in the summer of 2016 and his tenure on Merseyside is unfortunately marred with the two errors he made in the 2018 Champions League final against Real Madrid in Kiev, Ukraine.

An arid rollout to Karim Benzema and a gaffe on a Gareth Bale thunderbolt will forever live in the memory of Karius and Liverpool fans, but since he’s joined Union Berlin after a spell at Besiktas, he’s been performing well.

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Karius has started Union Berlin’s last three Bundesliga matches in Andreas Luthe’s absence due to personal reasons and has kept two clean sheets from those matches. He also played in Union’s 3-2 loss to SC Paderborn in the DFB-Pokal second round.

Despite Karius performing well in the past three matches, it’s understood that Luthe will be back between the sticks when he’s available. Additionally, Karius technically still has a contract with Liverpool until 2022, but recently said he could envision himself staying with Union long term, perhaps not yet being made aware of the interest from Bayern. Of course, he would willingly have to accept serving as a backup to Neuer.

From Bayern’s perspective, this could be a feasible option if they were to be able to convince Karius and get an appropriate fee negotiated with Liverpool. It looks increasingly likely that Nübel will be loaned out this summer to get valuable playing time under Niko Kovac at Monaco. Additionally, Christian Früchtl has hardly played while on loan at FC Nürnberg and Ron-Thorben Hoffmann’s contract expires this summer, so they are both looking like less viable options to serve as a backup to Neuer.