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The curious case of Naby Keita

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keniget

keniget

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All the talk of our lack of squad depth and over-reliance on a certain subset of players got me thinking about Keita.

And then I realized the novelty of that... after all the hype he's a bit of an irrelevance, an afterthought at Liverpool right now.

I saw very little of him during his time at Germany but all the reports promised a midfield phenom that could pretty much do it all. We've seen brief flashes of talent but very little evidence of a player that dominates a midfield.

In some ways it reminds of the Tim Vickery Lucas vs the real Lucas.

There is a good debate about Matip vs Gomez going on but I think the midfield dilemma is even more interesting. Henderson had a mini resurgence at the tail end of last season, Ox is back... where does Keita fit in?

I don't get the impression that Klopp is going to put all his faith in Keita coming good by putting him in the team and sticking with him.

Big season for Keita coming up.
 
Keita was starting to show real progress before that season ending injury with some great performances, hopefully he can continue from there.

Dont think this is anything like the Tim Vickery Lucas stuff. Keita was boss in Germany and has proven what he can contribute.
Need to step up this season and be more involved and consistent.
 
Hansern said:
Dont think this is anything like the Tim Vickery Lucas stuff. Keita was boss in Germany and has proven what he can contribute.
Click to expand...

It kinda is right. Lucas won the Golden Ball or boot or whatever award was given to the best player in the league. If you look at the past winners, it is an impressive list.

Anyways, if Keita starts showing his Bundesliga form, we are winning the league.
 
I saw enough to be optimistic. He's very shy, despite all the flamboyant suits, and I think he's just taken longer to settle than expected, but also those niggling injuries meant he never really got going. For me, he's competing with Henderson and Milner, for the second most advance midfielder. I also think he can step in for Fabinho against weaker opposition. He looked very uncomfortable when he first joined, as our most advanced midfielder and often got crowded out and couldn't find the space to influence matches. His best moments came when he was driving from deeper.
 
Theres a lot of maybes with this team that will determine if the squad will be brilliant, or fade away. We've had this in the past, and every time it's ended up in disappointment, but I dunno, this time, it feels different. I say that, because both Keita, and Ox were really starting to mark themselves out as the leagues top form players before their respective awful injuries, and I think that was just the beginning of their upward trajectory. If they start this season fully fit and ready to go? Wow, well, that mediocre workmanlike midfield of ours becomes second only to City's, and if Keita really hits the heights we saw in Bundasliga, he's going to be talked about in the same breath as Bernardo Silva come the end of the season. That's a massive if though.
 
Mystic said:
Theres a lot of maybes with this team that will determine if the squad will be brilliant, or fade away. We've had this in the past, and every time it's ended up in disappointment, but I dunno, this time, it feels different. I say that, because both Keita, and Ox were really starting to mark themselves out as the leagues top form players before their respective awful injuries, and I think that was just the beginning of their upward trajectory. If they start this season fully fit and ready to go? Wow, well, that mediocre workmanlike midfield of ours becomes second only to City's, and if Keita really hits the heights we saw in Bundasliga, he's going to be talked about in the same breath as Bernardo Silva come the end of the season. That's a massive if though.
Click to expand...
This is a calming post. I would have loved just one quality signing, but with Keita and Ox, you're right, we start the season with more strength, and more experience than we did last year. Will be nice to see them take the field and fuck off this preseason bullshit.
 
Bringing him in has raised the level of some other CMs - and Robbo becoming the world's best LB has added Milner to that pile too.

For me the following formation if each player was performing at their best would be:

-------Fabinho-------
------------Keita------ Gini & Millie rotating in this role
--------Ox-------------- Hendo & Shaq rotating in this role

Gini raised his game to another level many times last year (whilst still having some consistency challenged) and Hendo is likely to become a starter again more often than most of last year. Do we think Keita has the ability to be an impact sub or does he need game time to make his mark on a game?
 
Hes in a very difficult position now, he has yet to make any role in the team his own and both Henderson and Wjinaldum have improved since he was signed. Hes now also got a returning Ox to compete with for playing time.

He seems like the sort of player who needs a run of games to get his rhythm and I fear hes not going to get that barring a run of injuries the the more established players. At this point its 50/50 as to whether this will be his last season. I hope not as hes got tremendous potential but so far his niggling injuries have kept him off the pitch too frequently, he really needs to make his mark early on.
 
Let’s be real here, bar a handful of appearances he was dreadful last season.

Any sort of a passable input this season would be a huge improvement.
 
Squiggles said:
He wasn't dreadful. He didn't match expectations, but there is reasons for that and he's shown he's got the talent. There's plenty of reasons to be optimistic for Keita to shine this year.
Click to expand...

If you aren’t going to compare against expectations then what would you compare to? By all accounts he got nowhere the level so many expected or predicted for him.
 
Dreambeliever said:
If you aren’t going to compare against expectations then what would you compare to? By all accounts he got nowhere the level so many expected or predicted for him.
Click to expand...
You could try comparing him to other players that have taken time to bed into the team. Naby was excellent for RB Leipzig but Liverpool are a different machine and being surrounded by different cogs, he needs to fit his new space and be finely tuned. His injury hasn't helped either.
 
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