Keita’s ability “never in doubt”, says Klopp
Jurgen Klopp says his faith in Naby Keita was “never in doubt”, following his influential performance against Bournemouth on Saturday.
Liverpool eased to a 3-0 win on the south coast, on a day when they ended up 14 points clear of Manchester City.
Keita played a major role in the victory, scoring his side’s second goal and assisting Mohamed Salah for the third.
It has been a frustrating Reds career to date for the Guinean, who arrived with an enormous reputation.
This was a positive step in the right direction, however, and Klopp says he has always believed in the midfielder, despite him struggling for regular football:
Naby had injuries, the team is in really good shape, so then do you change?” said Klopp.
We are not flying, it’s not like we won all of the games 4-0, or 5-0, so we had to bring on a player who helps us with defending set-pieces.
Then Naby is sitting outside thinking, ‘why don’t I play?’ I get all that. So we stayed in contact, we talked and we spoke a lot about it.
But in the end, of course, a player needs to have this evidence that the manager still believes in you. I was never in doubt about that.
It was just unlucky and in life, you need luck always. He started [his Liverpool career] really well – everybody forgot that – then got injured. And again we had two really good seasons.
[I was] never in doubt about his quality.
Read Liverpool Verdict
Keita has been a disappointment to date, but it is clear that he possesses great quality.
Injuries have hampered his progress, not allowing him to get an extended run in the team, but if he can reach his potential, Liverpool have an outstanding prospect on their hands.
Keita will hope to face former club Salzburg on Tuesday evening, as the Reds aim to secure progress to the Champions League knockout stages.