A double goalkeeper deal involving Brentford sees a penalty expert move to West London and a Champions League club get a new shot-stopper.
Now under new management, Bayer Leverkusen are gearing up for the 2025-26 Bundesliga season that kicks off in August with a fresh face between the posts. Having signed a three-year contract alongside an £11m transfer free, Mark Flekken of Brentford will be filling in that post on a deal that will last until 2028.
Flekken’s new journey under former Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag began yesterday June 1st, following a medical with the former Bundesliga champions. With Matej Kovar out of the picture and up for sale this summer, 31-year old Dutchman Flekken will challenge Lukas Hradecky for game time while Niklas Lomb remains third in line on the bench. You'd expect Flekken has made the move with an assurance of the starting spot.
Where does that leave Brentford with their first-choice goalkeeper moving out?
Enter Caoimhin Kelleher. Liverpool’s penalty saving and shootout winning record holder - all in 67 games - arrives at the Gtech Community Stadium to fill Flekken's gloves.
Despite only playing 67 times for Liverpool in all competitions, Kelleher has won more penalty shootouts (4) and saved more penalties in shootouts (6) than any other goalkeeper in Liverpool's history.
Brentford are said to have had their eye on Kelleher from way back, even before signing Flekken. The Irishman spent the latter part of his youth career at Anfield since 2015, but last summer's signing of Valencia’s Giorgi Mamardashvili means that it would always highly likely that Kelleher would go where he would get minutes. Brentford have reportedly been competing with other clubs for Kelleher, including Leeds and West Ham, but manager Thomas Frank's relationship with Liverpool seems strong especially after obtaining Sepp van den Berg and Fabio Carvalho from Anfield in the last summer.
This end to a 10-year relationship between the 26-year old Irishman and the Premier League champion does not come cheap though, with a £12.5m price tag that could go up to £18m depending on performance-related add-ons. This new chapter for Kelleher has begun.
