Naby Keita

[Red_Polo]

There's been a massive increase in back injuries under Klopp. Not sure what it means, just saying..

He's worked hard to improve the spine in fairness.

[Irishnev]

He's worked hard to improve the spine in fairness.

Well, it’s not like he’s been carrying the team!

[Exiled_red]

There's been a massive increase in back injuries under Klopp. Not sure what it means, just saying..

Some of them were fictional though

[Shaggy]

[ame]https://twitter.com/_pauljoyce/status/1060515800275140608[/ame]

In one clip he would be bursting beyond a rival and delivering an incisive pass for a team-mate and, in another, adding momentum to an attack by cleverly switching the play.

There was footage of opposition raids being broken up with metronomic regularity and moments where the tempo was set simply by a trick which allowed possession to be kept.

The YouTube compilations of Naby Keïta’s best bits for RB Leipzig sustained Liverpool supporters during much of last season as anticipation of the midfielder’s looming arrival grew by the week, even while Jürgen Klopp’s side were blazing a trail in Europe.

The expectation was the £53 million midfielder would add a fresh dimension and watching Liverpool stutter against Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday signposted how such prophecies must also now become a reality.

In the noisy, cavernous bowl of the Stadion Rajko Mitic, the visitors lacked anyone in the engine room capable of bringing order to the chaos, adding a flourish of creativity and ensuring the game was played to Liverpool’s tune instead of the beat set by raucous hosts.

Keïta watched the tumult play out on the sidelines, alongside another expensive summer midfield recruit in £43 million Fabinho, having just returned to the squad following a hamstring injury which interrupted his quest for meaningful rhythm.

Thus far, Keïta’s time at Anfield has been start-stop to only succeed in fuelling a sense of frustration. After beginning the first three matches of the campaign, he has been restricted by a number of factors to only 304 minutes since being substituted shortly after the hour mark of a slender victory over Brighton & Hove Albion on August 25.

That game was also the last time Klopp picked an unchanged midfield with Keïta lining up to the left of the deep-lying Georginio Wijnaldum and James Milner on the right of the triumvirate.

Since then, there have been tweaks in personnel with captain Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana and Fabinho featuring while injuries and switches in formation, 4-3-3 morphing into 4-2-3-1, meaning any sense of continuity in the middle has been elusive. Fabinho and Wijnaldum started against Red Star and Cardiff City at home back-to-back, but there were changes in front of them.

Yet it feels like the time is now right to see just what Keïta can do over a run of games, starting with Fulham on Sunday, as Liverpool seek to rediscover their spark in what is developing into an incongruous campaign.

The paucity of their Champions League adventure to date jars with results in the Premier League where a win over Fulham will equal the club’s best points return after 12 games in the modern era.

Any victory will ensure Liverpool their best ever goal difference in the Premier League at this stage of a season and a clean sheet secures the least number of goals ever conceded in the Premier League after a dozen matches.

Manchester City’s continued excellence serves to distort the matters elsewhere.

Still, this is an interesting period for Klopp, who admitted in Belgrade that his team has not been performing as he would wish and must now seek to re-energise them after a run of three wins in nine matches which has shone a light on the issue of squad depth once again.

Daniel Sturridge showed against Red Star that if he does not score, he is not a deputy for Roberto Firmino because he has different attributes to the Brazilian. That is not his fault but very much Liverpool’s problem when the alternative is Divock Origi or Dominic Solanke. The likelihood is one of those will be allowed to leave in January, permanently or temporarily, if suitors present the right deal.

Liverpool need to fly out of the blocks against Fulham; play fast, play hard, run themselves to a standstill and if that means players have to withdraw from their international commitments as a result so be it.

The absence of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain remains a blow, but Klopp knew back in April that he would be out for the best part a year after his knee effectively exploded in a tackle on Roma’s Aleksandar Kolarov.

Keïta was perceived as the panacea for any problems in midfield and Fabinho trumpeted as a transfer coup, too.

It is time for at least one of them to prove as much. First up should be Keïta.

[SB]

Unleash the beast

[dizzycat]

He has shown enough to push on and play like the player we thought we had signed. Hopefully he will start and show us what we have been missing.

[SB]

He has shown enough to push on and play like the player we thought we had signed. Hopefully he will start and show us what we have been missing.

though I’m still expecting Henderson to start if he’s passed fit enough.

[danperkins]

Class today

[BigChief]

Class today

Meh, I felt he hid for 80 minutes.

Seriously though, we're going to need him in December. Got Everton, City and Utd.

[danperkins]

Meh, I felt he hid for 80 minutes.

Seriously though, we're going to need him in December. Got Everton, City and Utd.

I thought it was the perfect game for him to come on for 20 mins or so.

[Chris]

Hopefully he's in the team more often now, he just makes our midfield better and has most of the time he's played.

[Fredo]

He's been superb. Only lost the ball once all game I recall.

[Buzzo]

So unlucky to not get a goal tonight.

Feel that if he can notch one he will go on and bag loads.

[Rigadon]

Hopefully he's in the team more often now, he just makes our midfield better and has most of the time he's played.

played well with Henderson and Milner. Has previously played well with Wijnaldum. Has to be our first choice midfielder.

[Shaggy]

He's surely a fixture in the side for the next few weeks. That was more like it.