He’s been here over 3 years now and it’s abundantly clear what you see is what you get. 5 games into the season and already we’re seeing a situation develop where the same core group of players are going to be run ragged because the rest can’t be relied on to either stay fit for any length of time or just aren’t good enough. Thiago, Keita, Ox, Minamino…even Milner is picking up more niggles as age catches up with him. Henderson needs handling carefully and Fabinho could still miss games due to international commitments.
For me Keita is a luxury we just cannot afford. He should have been shipped out in the summer even at a big loss. Arguably our biggest ever flop.
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On the face of it, yes. However, if we look at his first season with us, he played more than a few minutes, missing only 4 league games through injury before the Barcelona incident.
The next season, he was still recovering from the injury, before missing just another 5 games that season from injury. Notably, he was sparingly used from October to December, in part if I recall correctly, because he didn’t get a proper pre-season. So far, just the one major injury and a couple of knocks here and there.
Last season, which was already a disrupted season thanks to COVID (so 2 season in a row without a proper pre-season), he played our first 4 games before getting COVID, then had a couple of small injuries that took him out for a game or so, then an ankle injury in the post-Boxing Day game that kept him out until February (in part due to the management mentioned by @Sweeting earlier, but also to compensate for the lack of pre-seasons). The team then decided that it was too risky to destabilise our team any further (see Jürgen’s interview on this for evidence), so he didn’t get a look in until this season, which was his first pre-season with us since his first season.
Injury-prone? Or unlucky? Depends on what you view the average top-flight footballer’s fitness as.
I like Keita and always felt he is our long term midfield mainstay when we signed him. He looked really good in Germany and that is why we were willing to pay that amount for him.
But whatever we say or try to look at different perspectives etc, stats do not lie. In his past 3 seasons with us, across all competitions, he played 1800, 1400 and 800 minutes respectively. That is 20 games, 16 games and 9 games. So regardless of what I think of him as a player, he is just of not of much use to us in the last 3 seasons, on the field at least. Do not think that the club should offer him a new contract at any time. From a neutral point of view, which top clubs are going to offer him a long term contract now? So there is no hurry. He has 2 seasons to prove that he has a future here, and that is not a hit on his abilities but a question whether he can stay fit to harness those abilities.
Is there a reliable source that mentions if any contract extension discussion has actually started/ planned for him?
If you scroll through his history on Flashscores, since he joined there are 11 separate periods where he is classed is injured. This one will make 12 in just over 3 seasons. I’d call it injury-prone.
In fact I’ve just checked again going back to November 2016 and his record is fucking insane. Over 30 separate injuries listed. Makes Sturridge and Aurelio look robust.
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It could be his agent he comes out with some crap.
I don’t understand why he was even playing against Norwich in the league cup.
Seems an unnecessary risk for a player who should be having his game time limited.
As for his agent saying that he needs to be more involved in the team for him to sign a new contract.
No fucking shit Sherlock. Problem is he has proved time and time again that he will play for 3-4 weeks then be injured for 6 weeks.
Sorry I honestly do not get the big deal about this player.
In 3 years he has probably been 8/10 2-3 times, more often than not 5/6 out of 10 and never a player that has once made me think “he has to be first name on the team sheet.
New contract to try and recoup some of the loss but to be honest if we were to try and flog him now we wouldn’t even get back 1/3 of his cost.
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Not his agent - just some random guy he knew when he was a kid.
His agency is a German based company who also look after the likes of Mane and Havertz.
This needs to be pinned at the top.
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Please don’t post facts here
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Milner was due to start the match, but wasn’t fit enough when they assessed him in the morning. My understanding is that Naby was drafted in, and Jones dropped deeper to the No.6 role.
On the discussion going on generally, I’d say he’s injury prone, however sometimes players get through them and come out the other side (through management by the club) and have a decent period playing regularly (go back to @Sweeting and the Raptors managing Leonard).
If this innocuous injury remains just that - and he’s back next week, I’m still pretty relaxed about Naby.
I was hoping for a CM addition this summer, and am okay with the fact it didn’t happen, but I expect the club to be lining something up for next summer (hey Jude…) as we need to a bit more robustness in there.
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Apologies, it is terribly annoying for the narrative!
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and people will conveniently miss that 
Or ignore it to continue with the ire and fury
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I think the idea was to play Milner but he got a cold or something.
Reminded me of the FA Cup game at Wolves a few years back. JK was looking to rest his CBs as Gomez had broken his leg at Burnley, whoever he was going to play pulled out so he ended up playing Lovren and he lasted 5 fucking minutes.
Typical of our shite luck.
Was that the game Hoever came on early to make his debut?
Or am I getting games mixed up?
Just popped in to grumble about what I verified via twitter about Keita’s agent (I’m a bit of an Inspector Clouseau) and can’t believe how could Naby allow him to come out with such guff - he’s made me furious. I am beyond irritated, what an outrage! 
That’s the one.
I don’t buy for one second there is any truth to the contract drama. Naby rarely, if ever, grants interviews so I cannot for the life of me believe that came from any credible source. It’s nonsense.
I will say this, I watched Klopp’s post game comments (after the Norwich match) about Naby’s injury and he was 100% annoyed about it. I also watched his PC today and his demeanor has softened quite a bit. He seemed a bit more sympathetic, calling it a very painful injury for Naby.
EDIT: if I were a betting man, and obvs this is just my opinion, I don’t think Keita will be here past his current deal. It has nothing to do with any bad feelings or drama, I just get the sense Naby will try something different next.
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Some of us don’t always have the fucking time to do that!
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