Should have made the decision in the summer, with two years (longish) on contract and still a big name and uncertainty on him (not quite certainty yet) regarding his availability and sold him for whatever we could get (even though it would have been a loss) to make room for a replacement/improvement on our options. I’d actually say keeping him left us a little unbalanced. In theory Thiago “replaced” Gini before Gini had left but in reality Thiago more replaces the void that the constant injuries to Ox and Keita left. Gini plays different and there’s been some movement to have Keita cover those missing actions/roles in the side with Ginis departure (with mixed success). If we’d sold Keita in the summer we could have brought someone able to play a more workman like/defensively conscious role in to replace him such as Ryan Gravenberch or Boubacar Kamara. That would have created better balance in midfield than keeping Keita did.
Not sure what to think about Keita. Right now I feel like we only have one midfielder who is world-class and that is Fabinho.
Milner is past his prime. Henderson isn’t at that level consistently anymore. Thiago isn’t at that level consistently anymore. Ox isn’t close to that level and isn’t healthy.
Jones is young and inconsistent. But he has time on his hands.
I don’t want to single Keita out and say he needs to go because besides Fabinho and Jones, I think we could improve by replacing any of the rest (priority being Ox).
No one would have bought Keita in the summer. Or Ox for that matter. Without checking I think the pair of them played the equivalent of about 8 games between them last season. No club is spending money on players that unreliable especially when they’re on big wages. I think the club made a concerted effort to try to sort Naby’s fitness at the end of last season. We were told he wasn’t being included in match day squads because we wanted to get him right once and for all. Doesn’t seem to have worked. Real shame because there’s definitely a player in there.
Except that the two of them were fit beyond February or so, just that Jürgen chose not to risk destabilising the team further.
I hate when things like this are said as fact. It’s pure conjecture, for all we know we received multiple bids. At the very least there would be clubs out there that would jump to have players at this level on loan. But looking at some of the questionable quality levels of players that move every summer, including last, I find it hard to believe nobody was interested.
Our main problem in getting players to move on is how demanding we are when it comes to high fees.
Our second main problem is how nice we are, we aren’t ruthless enough sometimes at making players know they have to move on. Maybe we can’t become more ruthless without damaging our great team spirit but we’ll probably never know as I see that coming more from Klopp than anywhere else. He’s far more likely to consider if a player wants to move on or stay when deciding player sales.
Except that this season he has played 10 games without injury concerns until he had 7 shades of shit kicked out of him by the scum last weekend and then broke down against Brighton so he hasn’t been injured this season
I mean everything you’ve said is pure conjecture as well.
is the injury related to the united game or a different one?
I was surprised to see him start v Brighton to be honest.
Best guess is I have no idea. Not a physio or Dr nor emplyed by the club so all I can go on is what is released by the club, which at the moment is nothing as they are probably still waiting for full diagnosis and recovery/rehab plan.
But that doesn’t change the fact that he has played 10 games so far this season, and until the manc game didn’t show any signs of carrying any sort of injury
He’s got a hamstring injury. Nothing to do with the United game. He was also injured in the Norwich league cup game. Ligament injury although to be fair he only missed one and a half games. I’m not sure what the argument is here. He’s clearly unavailable a lot of the time.
Imagine how good he’d be if he had a 20 game stretch uninjured
I just think hes one of those players where that will never happen unfortunately.
Id say his recent spell has been his best form since he got here - thats due to playing regular then…injured again.
I don’t think it’s pure conjecture. I think it’s, at worst, an very educated guess.
The fact that we did not move on fringe lads, despite the club having taken a massive financial hit from covid, suggests that we did not receive any suitable bids.
I personally doubt we had many bids at all - clubs were being incredibly careful with their money and while an injury plagued player like Keita or Ox might have warranted a punt in some summers, I don’t think last summer anyone is taking that gamble.
I think it’s more that we refuse to budge from valuation, not that we are particularly unreasonable in what we demand. I think that what we fear is being taken advantage of. Like you can’t have a player for half our valuation just because he’s fallen to the fringes.
Well, you’ve addressed this in your post, but yes - never going to happen with Klopp in charge. Pushing someone out of the team, making them train alone etc. is just not his style, but while it might be a bit harder to move players, you gain a lot more in team spirit and togetherness.
It’s also worth noting that where the club did invest was in a specialist staff member on rehab and recovery from injury. I think this might be one of those marginal gains They are looking to exploit. We all know that there are really good players in Ox, Keita, Matip etc. We just don’t see it because they struggle to stay fit. It might be that the club would rather invest in fixing the asset they have rather than binning it and starting again.
From a business standpoint, this does make some sense (fixing an existing asset is preferable to finding a new asset, and other clubs aren’t likely to pay Keita the wages he’s on now). That said, particularly with Keita and Matip — and recognizing that the Bundesliga is not as rigorous as the Premier League — I have to wonder what their injury histories were like in their previous clubs. Given how quick we were to pull the plug with Fekir, I have to imagine we might not have signed them if we knew that they were going to spend most of the time on the bench (yeah Matip was a free, but he still earns wages).
I also would like to know how much of it is mental vs. physical — I always remember the anecdote about Stevie G having to pump Sturridge up to be able to play against United (on a day which he scored the winner) when thinking about Sturridge’s unfulfilled potential. I am not suggesting Keita or Matip’s ailments haven’t been legit, but hearing Carragher say how Suarez would have “played with a broken leg” — meanwhile Keita’s former teammate and national team coach have noted he does not play if he is “afraid to get injured” — does resonate.
Back to the original point: even though you’d rather fix an asset you already own, there has to be a certain time where it just isn’t working and you cut ties. For me, Keita hasn’t played nearly enough to earn a new contract.
I agree, there would clearly have been price points that Liverpool would have done a deal. However, I just don’t think they were on the table.
On the contract, I would be looking to tie Keita down. He can leave on a free next summer.
And this is exactly why we didn’t sign another midfielder, we have two senior players who we bought for decent amount on good wages and by now (contract renewal) we would have expected them to be first choice. Irrespective of what some would have you believe it’s not good business sense to spend x amount on a 7th choice midfielder and pay them good wages to sit on the bench. If we had sold either of Keita or Ox we would have had the room, as you say no chance anyone wants them currently.
There will always be clubs who would want to buy a player of the quality of Keita, we are at the very pinnacle of football.
What the issues are;
1; Would those clubs be able to afford a wage Keita would accept? In these circumstances the selling club regularly has to pay the player some of the transfer fee to “make up” the loss in wages. Complicated but can be overcome.
2; Will the player accept the move to the club in question? I think Keita would move to a Europe competition participant club or an upper Prem Club but we can’t know that. He may not want to leave in which case I just can’t see Klopp telling him he has to. If that’s the case he’s here till he leaves as a free agent in 2023 as I can’t see the club offering an extended contract on the same or improved terms. Players are very unlikely to accept extensions on reduced wages till they are into their 30s.
3; How much we value him at before we will accept a sale… or looking at our last few years sales probably safer to say “overvalue” him at.
Are there clubs that would be interested in him, that he would be willing to move to, that can come up with a bid somewhere within the ball park of what we would accept? That’s probably a no.
I think, however, if the club were more persuasive on encouraging him to move (but in a nicer way than some suggest) and more open on valuation then there would be very little problem in achieving a sale. Only opinion but that’s where I stand.
Sure as hell if we announced we would pay his full wages for the 18 months he would have been under contract with us and the bidding starts at £5m there would be a queue of clubs wanting to talk to us.
The fact Gerrard said that about Sturridge doesn’t make it true, just his perception. And from a man whose first 3-4 years of his career were affected by repeated muscle injuries you’d expect him to maybe have more understanding about the physical struggles of a fellow athlete and team mate.
The most reliable indicator of injury of prior injury. Not because the people who experience them are soft, but that’s just generally how injuries work.
It doesn’t, but it has the same theme as what Keita’s ex-teammate (and NT coach) have said about the latter. With Stevie, he broke into the first team around age 18, and IIRC a number of Gerrard’s injuries during that time were back-related and stemmed from growth issues (likely to be encountered at that age). Keita is 26, too old to be able to chalk those ailments up to growth.
Not the point. Once injured a muscle is more likely to become injured again than a never injured muscle. Regardless of the proximal cause of gerrard’s issue, it is a reality he dealt with and got through as a result of care, special attention, rationing of his games and the benefit of youth.