Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet signs new five-year contract

Simon Mignolet has brought talks over a new Liverpool contract to a swift conclusion by signing a deal that ties him to Anfield until 2021.

The Belgium international was approached over a contract extension late last year after the manager, Jürgen Klopp, declared his confidence in the 27-year-old and denied wanting a new first-choice goalkeeper at Liverpool.

Negotiations advanced smoothly and Mignolet, who had two and a half years remaining on the £60,000-a-week contract he signed when arriving from Sunderland in 2013, put pen to paper on the new five-year deal on Monday.

“I’m very pleased that I can be at Anfield and a part of Liverpool for a long future, Mignolet told Liverpool’s website. “I’m happy to commit my future to LFC.

“I know signing a new contract comes with new responsibility. I’m getting older as well and coming into the years where people would say those are the years a keeper is at his best.

“I know with a long-term contract, you get more responsibility – and I want to take up that role because I’m the sort of character that wants to be a leader, wants to speak in the dressing room and wants to help the defence.”

Mignolet has attracted criticism during his Anfield career yet kept more clean sheets in 2015 than any other keeper in the Premier 

League. Klopp described the Belgian as one of the smartest goalkeepers he has worked with when ruling out a move for Stoke City’s Jack Butland last month.

I’ll try to work hard together with the goalkeeping coach and staff here, who are behind me and have given their confidence with a new contract,” Mignolet said.

“I would like to thank them for that – but you can’t really do that with words, you have to do that with performances on the pitch. And that’s what I’ll try to show.”

The young Liverpool midfielder Allan Rodrigues de Souza has joined Mignolet’s former club Sint-Truidense on loan until the end of the season. The 18-year-old Brazilian returned from a loan spell with the Finnish side SJK in October and will spend the rest of the campaign in Belgium as he awaits a work permit to play in the Premier League.