Liverpool legend Didi Hamann is right about midfielder Naby Keita, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The German was quoted in Anfield Watch, who took the words from James Pearce’s article in The Athletic about the Liverpool man.
For RB Leipzig, Naby Keita was a supreme force. He scored goals, caused panic in the final third and was one of Europe’s most complete midfielders. Jurgen Klopp even described him as so.
There are still days when the Guinea international can do those incredible things. He can get box-to-box, he can tackle and charge and run and shoot and be the main man, but the problem with Liverpool is that those days will not be a regular occurance.
Didi Hamann knows this, and mentioned the system that Klopp plays. There is less room for him to be creative as the midfield needs to be more functional and defensive and there is less room afforded to Keita within the dynamic.
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"He said: “I don’t think he will ever be the player at Liverpool that everyone expected him to be when he first signed because of the way the team sets up.But there’s still plenty of room for improvement. It’s down to him.”"
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain seems to be the man who is given the freedom to roam forward and do mad things, more so than Keita, who appears to be at the bottom of the pecking order right now.
Perhaps he’s struggling with the tactical requirements of Klopp. We’ve seen good players have an issue with this before as Xherdan Shaqiri was famously hauled off at half time in September 2018 because he couldn’t carry out Klopp’s instruction properly.
But even if Keita doesn’t become the complete, destructive midfielder we all thought he would, that might not be the worst thing in the world.
If he can sort his fitness issues out, have a full preseason and become more tactically astute, this is still someone who can be a vital part of the first team.
There are enough redeeming qualities in there to make a Liverpool player of him yet. But we might need to show a little more patience.