Football pundit Chris Sutton has blamed Liverpool midfielder Naby Keïta for costing the club two points in their title race on Monday night.
The Guinea international couldn’t contain Michail Antonio when the Reds played the Hammers at the London Stadium, and the 28-year old would go on to finish and level the score, which saw Liverpool lose ground on rivals Manchester City.
Despite now being level on points with City, Liverpool have a game in hand and can still pull back in front. However, that doesn’t excuse Keïta’s actions in the eyes of Sutton.
Talking to BBC Radio Five Live, as quoted by Mirror Online, Sutton said:
So, you’d have expected your players, you’re talking about experienced enough players, to switch on (from the free-kick).
Keita was the one who switched off in terms of the free kick.
That’s a poor individual error and if you want to win titles, and you have a team as strong as Manchester City who you’re competing with, you can’t afford those errors.
You expect more from Keita and that is the difference with Liverpool.
That one error, that one moment from Keita switching off, has cost Liverpool a couple of points.
They paid a lot of money for Keita so on that basis you’re asking somebody to do their job in that moment when the free kick was materialising and it was popped to [Robert] Snodgrass and at the point he’s making the pass, Antonio had already made his run but Keita has to see that.
I don’t understand how he doesn’t see that really. It’s a poor error of judgement from a player who he invested a lot of money in.
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