FeatureLa Liga expert's view on Giorgi Mamardashvili: 'A really good 'keeper with a lot of personality'

The Reds agreed a deal with Valencia last month to bring the Georgia international, who is a nominee for the 2024 Yachine Trophy, to Anfield next season.

For the lowdown on the 23-year-old stopper, Liverpoolfc.com sought the expertise of Dermot Corrigan, La Liga correspondent for The Athletic – read on for his analysis…

What was your reaction to hearing Liverpool agreed a deal with Valencia for Mamardashvili?

I wasn't hugely surprised. He's a really good goalkeeper and there has been a lot of talk that at some stage he would leave Valencia probably to go to the Champions League – it was a little about which level of club he would go to. But after the Euros when he was excellent for Georgia, it was expected that he would end in the Premier League. Liverpool is a great move for him and a good move for Liverpool as well.

Was it obvious early on that a Champions League club like Liverpool would eventually come in for him?

He had a bit of an unusual route to Valencia. I think they did well to snap him up and it was part of Valencia policy under their current president Peter Lim of identifying really good international young players who would be useful for the team and then at some stage they would be able to sell on at a profit. He was seen as a project. He was very young when he broke into the Valencia team and obviously had super potential. He was raw and needed to gain experience and to improve maybe technically on his goalkeeping, but he was always seen as a guy who would be good for Valencia in the short term and in the medium to long term would probably end up moving to a Champions League club.

He's obviously gone from strength to strength and now has more than 100 appearances for Valencia at the age of 23...

Valencia have had their ups and downs over the last few seasons. It's a very demanding place, they're used to playing in the Champions League and we remember them winning La Liga under Rafa Benitez, also winning the Copa del Rey a couple of years ago. In the last couple of years they've been battling against relegation and they've sold some of their best players, so that's not that easy for young players – especially a goalkeeper – to come in to. The defence in front of him would have had a lot of changes over the seasons as well. Last season he was excellent and it was definitely his best season. His xG prevented stat last season in La Liga was the best in the division – it showed that he had reached a new level.

With him being a really good shot-stopper, he's also known for saving penalties...

He's a big, physically imposing guy with a lot of personality, he likes to be involved in the game. Penalties are where goalkeepers get a chance to shine. He saved three of six penalties faced in La Liga last season, which is a pretty good record. Valencia's goalkeeping coach is Jose Manuel Ochotorena – he was at Liverpool with Rafa and also with the Spain national team all through their golden age, winning the 2010 World Cup and two Euros, working with Iker Casillas and Pepe Reina. So he's had that technical grounding. He's come in with the raw talent that he always had – physically he's huge and he has the reflexes and everything – but he's been able to work for a couple of years at Valencia with one of the top goalkeeping coaches in the world, you could argue, which has obviously been good for him.

In terms of moving to the Premier League, do you think he's well equipped for it?

Sometimes goalkeepers who come from other leagues might be more used to staying on their line, not coming for crosses, not coming off their line to engage with strikers – I wouldn't be worried about that. He is kind of a traditional goalkeeper. At Valencia, he hasn't played under coaches in the more modern school of building it out from the back, splitting the centre-backs and the goalkeeper being a playmaker from the back. I don't think he's done that for Valencia or Georgia – I'm not saying that he's not capable of it but it's something that he hasn't really had that much experience of so far in his career.

• Giorgi Mamardashvili nominated for 2024 Yachine Trophy