Time to maybe make this thread an ex-player thread? Thrown into the archives, locked up and key thrown away please.
At that wage, not hard to work out why he could not have been sold last summer. He is 28, signed a 3-year deal, and after 30 he is likely to be taking another step down in tiers. He will have earned more at LFC this past year than Werder will pay him for the entire life of his contract. There was no residual value left in his contract this time last year for LFC to sell.
How will he cope on Ā£30,000 a week? Any food banks in Germany?
I didnāt expect him to go to a higher level club to be fair. His quality is undisputed, but heās almost a guarantee to miss out on three quarters of the season. That makes him expensive for any top side.
But even at Werder, Iām sure that his wage is heavily linked to the number of appearances. 30k/week is massive for a club like Werder.
Anyway, all the best Naby!
(I wonder what our friend @Werder4life thinks of that move!)
Yeah, but there are still a good few āmiddle optionsā between a Bayern/Dortmund/Leipzig (whatever we consider a top side besides Bayern in Germany) and bloody Werder.
But of course, I wish him all the best. Just that Iām aware that it wasnāt easy to find a buyer for him.
Where do you think heās been all this time?!? He instigated the move!! Bright future in the footballing agency of the world ahead of him!!
Werder isnāt that bad, is it? Yeah, they dropped to the second tier recently, but before that, they were perennials in the Bundesliga, won titles tooā¦ they are a club with tradition.
Their support is very passionate as for all clubs in Northern Germany, so I donāt think itās that bad for him to play there. But yeah, not CL-level quality. Obviously not.
Good luck Werderā¦
Clubs like Dortmund or Leipzig could afford to have him as backup.
I have been summoned?
When I read he actually signed for us , I was wondering if I get to meet him at the physio at the stadium on my regular dog walks.
Jokes aside , Iām exited about this. He may be just playing half of the matches , but the quality and type of player he is, we were missing out on for a long time now.
If he manages to stay fit heāll be a regular starter - no question about that.
And the deal is almost daylight robbery on our part
This is more of Keita trying to get a fresh start. Good performances and fitness levels will ensure a move the season after to hopefully a club which pays him closer to his Liverpool wages
The injury jokes are boring at this stage.
The lad has been really unlucky.
I wish him well, he did as good as he could
Did manage to read somewhere (maybe TIA) that Liverpool were unhappy with Keita and his resilience to pain and the ability to play through the pain.
Itās not easy to come back from injuries as thereās always the fear that it could be a recurrence (which inhibits peak performance). As far as I could see , this seems a problem for Keita and to Sturridge as well. Such a shame that , not blaming the players one bit here but those are two top level talents (along with Ox) , who could probably have been best in their positions for their national teams (Sturridge on peak form was probably the best England striker)
Goes for Ox and for Wilshere as well.
I doubt it - why sign a contract that long? Heāll be there for at least 2 years, by which time he will be 30. A guy who was vulnerable to injuries at the age of 26 is going to be living in the physio office at 30. Maybe if he puts together a complete season his stock will rise to some degree, but it is no accident there wasnāt much of a market for him. Any potential buyer viewing a miraculously injury-free 23-24 BL campaign where Keita played every match is simply going to expect regression to the mean.
Yeah, this is far more Keitaās current reality rather than a passing station before going to Bayern next season.
Would the training regime at Liverpool,due to whatās expected by our style of play, be more physically demanding than at some other clubs, which with a new club might allow him to stay injury free that bit longer .
Possibly, although that would not speak well to staff competence to some degree. Even the playing style might make a difference, I have no idea how Werder play. There is also the simple fact that Werder wonāt have as many matches, so managing him will be less problematic.
Fundamentally, I think the heart of the problem is being probably the best player for a small national team. He gets hard use when he goes on international duty, and I donāt think he is built for it.
Yes, this was a big issue for us as he was often not fit when called up and then run into the ground by his national team.
It will be interesting to see how himself and Ox fair out with injuries over the next couple of years.I think Ox had some injury problems before he came to us but i remember that injury he got during the Roma semi final and feel he just hasnāt recovered properly from that one.
Chamberlain has had a terrible injury record, he missed most of an Arsenal season with a knee injury nearly as bad as the ligament rupture (not sure if it was the same leg). That first year was one of the longest injury-free periods of his career until it ended in that semi, though it did appear that he was finally over the knee issue. I think you are probably right, physically or mentally he has lost a step. Another guy who is looking at the pointy end of 30 (this summer), and any offer that he gets will be a fraction of his LFC wages, and likely no higher than mid-table. Maybe a West Ham or a Villa, with the expectation that he rotates heavily and plays mainly in Europe? Not sure what his experience/bond with Southampton was like, perhaps in lieu of retirement he would consider going there to be a wise hand and take a step toward a coaching career. But quite a reasonable comparison to Keita, in any case.