The sadness of Naby Keïta’s Liverpool career
The Reds thought they’d signed a £52m game-changer in 2018, but it hasn't worked out that way...
When Liverpool announced that they’d agreed a deal to sign Naby Keïta from RB Leipzig in August 2017, it’s fair to say the reaction within the football world was one of excitement, as well as surprise.
“I’ve got lots of contacts in Germany,” said a beaming Jürgen Klopp, “and I’ve never got so many congratulations messages!”
The feeling was that Liverpool had bought themselves a game-changer, a midfielder so talented, and with such a broad skillset, that the £52 million ($62m) they had agreed to pay would soon be revealed as a bargain. Keïta would not officially arrive on Merseyside until the following June, but boy would he be worth the wait.
At 22, he’d already established himself as one of the best up-and-coming players in Europe. He’d emerged at the French Ligue 2 club FC Istres, polished his skills with Salzburg in the Austrian Bundesliga before, in 2016, taking that well-trodden path to Leipzig, where he would become one of the centrepieces of Ralph Hasenhüttl’s brilliant, dynamic young team.
“He’s the best player in the league,” Klopp said, and few who had watched Keïta regularly would have disagreed. The football analytics community, in particular, were blown away by the Guinea international, and his ability to shine in just about every available metric as a midfield player.
The Keïta of Leipzig was a prodigious ball-winner and a relentless presser, he was an inventive passer, he scored goals and, most exciting of all, he dribbled past opponents like a traditional winger, only in central areas.
Ted Knutson, of the brilliant Statsbomb website, referred to him as “the most athletic young central midfielders I have ever scouted”, while Liverpool asked Steven Gerrard, then the coach of their U18 side, to present him with the No.8 shirt upon his first visit to the club’s Melwood training ground.
“It was an incredible day for me,” Keïta said. “If somebody like that gives you his shirt number, it’s not to play around with, it is to try and do as much as he did – that’s my motivation.”
Keïta arrived in the summer of 2018 as part of a significant Liverpool overhaul as, in the space of 12 months, Klopp added Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Fabinho to his strongest XI. It was a quite remarkable series of signings, even more so when you consider a large chunk of the Reds’ outlay was covered by the sales of Philippe Coutinho, Mamadou Sakho, Danny Ward and Lucas Leiva.
Klopp has since said that, in the club’s eyes, only Van Dijk and Alisson needed to be “slam dunk” signings, but Keïta certainly felt as if he would fall into that category, and that Liverpool expected him to.
He had a full pre-season with his new club, during which Klopp spoke regularly about how easy he was finding the adaptation process - especially compared to Fabinho, who took time to settle - and his Premier League debut against West Ham was packed with promise. Keïta had a hand in two of Liverpool’s four goals, completing 90 minutes as the Reds’ midfield gave Mark Noble, Jack Wilshere and a young Declan Rice the runaround.
The following game, away at Crystal Palace, brought another win, another solid performance and a skinning of Andros Townsend that went viral across social media. “Naby’s arrived,” was the cry. The game-changer was here.
A little over four years on, however, we find ourselves here, wondering when, or indeed if, we will see Keïta in a Liverpool shirt again, and unable to avoid the conclusion that the ‘bargain’ has turned out to be anything but.
His fifth season on Merseyside has been little short of a nightmare. He hasn’t played since the Community Shield against Manchester City in July - and even that was only a five-minute cameo off the bench - and hasn’t even featured in a matchday squad since the draw with Crystal Palace on August 15.
An injury sustained in training on the eve of the defeat to Manchester United kept him out for more than two months, and even after returning to training towards the end of October, Keïta has not been deemed fit enough to feature, even on the bench, even in the Carabao Cup win over League One side Derby County.
‘Plus ça change’, his critics would say. Keïta is not fit, water is wet and the world keeps turning. If you expect nothing, you should never be disappointed, and while some still hold out hope that he will deliver on that potential of 2017, plenty of Liverpool fans have learnt to expect nothing from the fourth-biggest signing in their club’s history.
As it stands, Keïta is out of contract in seven months’ time, and in just over six weeks he will be free to negotiate a pre-contract agreement with an overseas club. There has been interest from Germany, where memories of his two-year spell in Leipzig remain strong, and a suggestion that both Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain could look to nab him on a free come the summer.
Liverpool, meanwhile, have been tight-lipped. For months, Anfield sources insisted that a renewal was in the pipeline, and even as recently as June, Reds sporting director Julian Ward was with Björn Bezemer, Keïta’s agent, in Mallorca, holding what were described as “more than amicable” conversations.
Bezemer, you probably know, also represents Sadio Mané, as well as former Liverpool players Taiwo Awoniyi and Marko Grujić, so his relationship with the club is strong. It was surprising, then, that in the final days of the summer transfer window, stories appeared in Germany suggesting that Keïta was unhappy with his situation, and that he was looking to secure a transfer.
Liverpool sources immediately dismissed such claims, and Keïta’s subsequent injury put paid to any idea of an August move in any case, but nearly three months on, there has been no real progress, and a decision needs to be made; do the Reds look to renew, look to sell in January or allow a £52m footballer to run down his contract and leave on a free in June?
Right now, all three options are on the table, but it has to be said that the first one looks the least likely. How, one wonders, could Liverpool justify a three or four-year extension, at circa £6m ($7m) a year, for a player who plays so little football?
Keïta has made only 117 appearances since moving to Anfield, his time ravaged by hamstring, groin and knee issues, illness and muscle complaints. He is averaging 23.4 appearances per season and only 14 starts, and even if you remove this campaign, which is not yet halfway through, those numbers only jump to 29 and 18.
That’s not too bad if you’re Harvey Elliott or Fabio Carvalho, youngsters being dipped in and out of senior football, but certainly not enough if you’re the fourth most expensive central midfielder in Premier League history.
It is important, at this point, to make clear that he is not the first Liverpool player whose body has betrayed his talent. How good might the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Jamie Redknapp, Fábio Aurélio, Harry Kewell or Alberto Aquilani have been were it not for injury? The point is not to blame Keïta, merely to lament both his misfortune, and Liverpool’s.
And he has had his moments in a red shirt. He played his part in the Champions League win of 2019, and in the Premier League triumph the following season. He started the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Club World Cup finals, he scored spectacular goals and featured 40 times as Liverpool chased an unprecedented quadruple last term. He hasn’t been a flop, certainly not in the Mario Balotelli, Lazar Marković or El Hadji Diouf sense.
The final of those 40 appearances, of course, was in the Champions League final in Paris. Keïta came on as a late substitute, and had the chance to make himself a hero as the ball rolled to him invitingly on the edge of the Real Madrid penalty area.
His effort, shanked horribly off target, kind of sums up his Liverpool career. So much promise, but ultimately disappointing, with everyone left wanting more.
There is a world in which Keïta returns to action after the World Cup, fit, hungry and in form. He is good enough to make a difference in Klopp’s side, and there are enough games in the second half of the campaign to ensure plenty of opportunities.
The problem is, who really believes that will happen? There have been too many false dawns, too many ‘is this his moment?’ articles (I’ve written a few of those myself down the years!), too many encouraging showings followed by three-week absences. His loyalists remain, encouraged by his pressing and ball-winning stats whenever he does get on the field, but even they can see the writing on the wall. Six minutes in six months is not what Liverpool need, it’s not something they can bank on in the future, and it’s certainly not what they paid all that money for.
If, as I suspect, Keïta’s Reds career comes to an end soon, there will be mixed emotions. There will be those who laugh, those who remember the good times, those who get angry and those who shrug their shoulders, say ‘good riddance’ and look to the future.
The overriding feeling, though, will be one of sadness. As Liverpool prepare for their next midfield overhaul, the man who should have led the last one exits stage left, medals in his pocket but promise unfulfilled.
Great article really well written. Sums it up to a tee.
I think there's a player in there, but Keita needs to play elsewhere