Naby Keita

[McDermotX]

Downing's signing gets away with murder if you ask me......had been stinking up the league for years with his subpar mediocrity, and we still went and paid 20m+, probably unopposed as well from what I recall.

Baffling.

[danperkins]

Forgot about him actually, yeah he was a shocker alright.

[Buzzo]

I loathed watching Big **** Chris. Klopp had a barely disguised loathing himself, he was always going bezerk at him. Everything Klopps style of footy stands for is everything big Chris was not.

[Mark79]

I am saying from a value for money perspective he has been a bad signing & yeah I agree with regard to Ox and Lallana too. IMO we should have got rid of Lallana years ago & same goes for Ox. I do think Ox will be gone in the summer.

Value for money is surely the way any club judges any signing no?

True, though I’d say Naby is a very good signing blighted by bad luck.

Others like Carroll, Downing, Balotelli, Djibril Cisse, El Hadj Diouf were all big money or even marquee signings of the time. Some of them were hampered by injury too, but they were all far poorer than Naby in terms of quality and fit and also in terms of value for money too.

I know you don’t agree, but at least Naby does actually show his value when he’s playing, unlike that lot and many others.

[McDermotX]

Aye......the likes of Keita etc are somewhat understandable given the potential ceiling, as is the frustration when he's, overall, contributed very little in his years here up to now for a variety of reasons.

But the Downing one always bothered me. Everyone knew what he little he could offer, what his history was and we still went and paid for that ****. Plus the English tax. For me, way worse than the likesnof the Carroll signing.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I disagree with this point. IMO instead of being a steady performer, he has either coasted through most games or not been involved full stop.

Watching him tells you he's a nice footballer that is clear, I have said that myself. But there are plenty of nice footballers who don't actually do much. He was brought here because he looked a dynamic midfielder, aggressive, box to box he could pass, tackle and get involved with goals and assists. What we have seen is that he is not that dynamic, he is slow, needs time on the ball & has struggling massively with the physicality of the league. The stats can be skewed if you really want to with pass percentage etc which I am beginning to hate but what he is showing so far is not what we bought him for & that's besides the injuries.

Was not even thinking about his pass % with regards to stats, but I was giving more weight to what I have seen with my eyes anyway and just said that the stats for him back up what I thought I have seen.


But to dig into his stats a bit on the things you mentioned. His stats for things like tackles made and successful tackles have been consistently good since joining us, his interception and dribble stats have been consistently good, his dispossession stats have been very good which says he does not have the ball taken from him a lot, and his poor ball control stats for the last three seasons range show he does not miscontrol the ball much, and your fave stat, pass completion %, shows him to be one of the more efficient passers of the ball in the team when he plays.

So basically the guy does everything well and is pretty much a text book 7/10 player on the pitch who does all the basics well almost all the time and who is very good at keeping possession and resisting presses. His heat maps show he is also very mobile during games and his stats for link up play (one twos and so on) are also good.

The guy is not spectacular to watch, but he ticks away in a very consistent manner when he plays and I think it is no coincidence that if you look at some of our best offensive performances this season and last, you will find that Naby played in a number of those games and he was being used in the pivot role to ensure smooth transitions in the middle and the keeping of possession.

[Mark79]

I disagree with this point. IMO instead of being a steady performer, he has either coasted through most games or not been involved full stop. Tentative and afraid to take responsibility.

Watching him tells you he's a nice footballer that is clear, I have said that myself. But there are plenty of nice footballers who don't actually do much. He was brought here because he looked a dynamic midfielder, aggressive, box to box he could pass, tackle and get involved with goals and assists... the whole package. What we have seen is that he is not that dynamic, he is slow, needs time on the ball & has struggling massively with the physicality of the league. The stats can be skewed if you really want to with pass percentage etc which I am beginning to hate but what he is showing so far is not what we bought him for & that's besides the injuries.

Disagree, I see a totally different player to you.

And when you look at the data (well beyond pass percentage) he is consistently one of our top performers across every possible metric.

[Roboklopp]

Dossena scored against Man U and Real Madrid.
Degen never really got a game due to injury.

Cissohko was bad, true, but for alroind lack of ability PFK is the winner. I recall games where he really couldn’t mark his man, seemingly had no real understanding of the position or his requirements. He was awful.

TBF neither did Bodge


Balotelli also sticks out as a terrible signing for me. We knew he was a **** and inconsistent on the field at best & still chucked best part of £20m at him. Even worse than Downing who was a massively overpriced mehhhhhhh.

[red g]

lazar markovic and Stewart Drowning probably have to be up there for big money flops.

[Mark79]

Was not even thinking about his pass % with regards to stats, but I was giving more weight to what I have seen with my eyes anyway and just said that the stats for him back up what I thought I have seen.


But to dig into his stats a bit on the things you mentioned. His stats for things like tackles made and successful tackles have been consistently good since joining us, his interception and dribble stats have been consistently good, his dispossession stats have been very good which says he does not have the ball taken from him a lot, and his poor ball control stats for the last three seasons range show he does not miscontrol the ball much, and your fave stat, pass completion %, shows him to be one of the more efficient passers of the ball in the team when he plays.

So basically the guy does everything well and is pretty much a text book 7/10 player on the pitch who does all the basics well almost all the time and who is very good at keeping possession and resisting presses. His heat maps show he is also very mobile during games and his stats for link up play (one twos and so on) are also good.

The guy is not spectacular to watch, but he ticks away in a very consistent manner when he plays and I think it is no coincidence that if you look at some of our best offensive performances this season and last, you will find that Naby played in a number of those games and he was being used in the pivot role to ensure smooth transitions in the middle and the keeping of possession.

All of this. And loads of other stuff too, like creating chances from pressing, winning possession from pressing, etc

[Mark79]

lazar markovic and Stewart Drowning probably have to be up there for big money flops.

Markovic is a good shout. Forget about him. £20m, a massive flop in terms of performance and we paid his wages to play more games for other clubs than he did for us.

[Doc_Piptorious]

All of this. And loads of other stuff too, like creating chances from pressing, winning possession from pressing, etc

Yep he really is a very effective player albeit in a very under the radar to the eye sort of way at times.

The only issue I have with him is the amount of time is is unavailable to either start or be ready to step in as a back up.

In terms of ability and performances I would not be looking to move him on, but in terms of availability I would have him pretty much in a show what you got between now and the next Jan window or we move you on bracket.

Would certainly sell a few other players in our squad before him though as he offers more than say Chamberlain on the pitch when both are fit so if one crock had to go to raise funds, Chamberlain would be gone first of those two for me.

[McDermotX]

Markovic is a good shout. Forget about him. £20m, a massive flop in terms of performance and we paid his wages to play more games for other clubs than he did for us.

Best Liverpool moment ? Only one winner

[danperkins]

Was not even thinking about his pass % with regards to stats, but I was giving more weight to what I have seen with my eyes anyway and just said that the stats for him back up what I thought I have seen.


But to dig into his stats a bit on the things you mentioned. His stats for things like tackles made and successful tackles have been consistently good since joining us, his interception and dribble stats have been consistently good, his dispossession stats have been very good which says he does not have the ball taken from him a lot, and his poor ball control stats for the last three seasons range show he does not miscontrol the ball much, and your fave stat, pass completion %, shows him to be one of the more efficient passers of the ball in the team when he plays.

So basically the guy does everything well and is pretty much a text book 7/10 player on the pitch who does all the basics well almost all the time and who is very good at keeping possession and resisting presses. His heat maps show he is also very mobile during games and his stats for link up play (one twos and so on) are also good.

The guy is not spectacular to watch, but he ticks away in a very consistent manner when he plays and I think it is no coincidence that if you look at some of our best offensive performances this season and last, you will find that Naby played in a number of those games and he was being used in the pivot role to ensure smooth transitions in the middle and the keeping of possession.

Last season there was so many amazing performances to be honest, everyone was on it, this season has been few and far between. Keita has only played 90 mins once this season in his 9 or 10 appearances and featured when we had a fully fit side so hard to say that. The reason I actually bumped this thread was because of a conversation about Keita with friends on whatsapp. One of the lads thinks he has been **** a disaster signing, the other lad thinks he has been good and produced the stats for pretty much what you said above. Both LFC fans.

So the guy that thinks he has been good posted all the stats from above that you have just mentioned & he other guy pretty much said this in reply. That pass, dribble, dispossession and ball control stat are pretty much inter linked. He doesn't try many high risk balls so possession stat is safe, most of them are sideways and simple, he doesn't dribble much so dribbling/dispossession stat is good and if he does it's over short distances to less like to lose the ball. He does have nice control, he is a nice footballer and technically efficient I don't think anybody will deny that. Interesting to hear such contrasting opinions. It's escalated a bit as there is 17 lads on the thread so I thought it would be good to rehash it on here but there was valid points on both sides imo.

Here's my take on it, at RBL his role seemed more dynamic as he had more license to drift, go from box to box and play a role with freedom as he was allowed to. At LFC & in the premier league imo he has been asked to play a much more tactical game in a much higher tempo & physciality which I do genuinely think he has struggled with. You could argue that the language barrier or that he is constantly injured could have something to do with that.

The reason I keep mentioning value for money is because we usually seems to have to sell to buy so it's a tight ship all round. With covid and the lack of finances value for money is even more important than ever. So we spend nearly 50m on a guy who is different from our current midfielders and who many of us described as a game changer signing (myself included), we bought him as our current midfield where tactically astute and workmanlike and we needed an x factor.

I wonder will Klopp and the backroom team be looking to cash in on the likes of Keita, Ox, Shaq, Matip who simply are not offering value for money and using the potential funds we can raise for them towards players who can potentially make a consistent difference. I do wonder if Klopp's patience has finally worn out with these guys & with what has gone on this season?

[danperkins]

Best Liverpool moment ? Only one winner

Lazar has been be top 5 alright. Totally forgot that he ever existed. What a pile of ****e