This was rather unpleasant listening for a Tuesday morning!
Liverpool badly need central midfield enforcements this summer to take some responsibility away from Gini Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson and Adam Lallana.
At times this term those three have struggled physically and Emre Can’s inconsistent form has been well publicised.
A target has been Naby Keita, but on the Echo’s Anfield Extra podcast, guest journalist Jorg Jakob, who edits Kicker magazine in Germany claimed there’s absolutely no chance we’ll acquire the Guinean.
“Keita as a player is really on fire. But I don’t see him in Liverpool. As far as I know, there is no real chance Keita wants to go to Liverpool and people in Leipzig don’t see him in Liverpool either,” he said, before dishing out a similarly hopeless verdict on Marco Reus!
The 22-year-old has shone for Red Bull Leipzig during his debut season in Germany, much like N’Golo Kante did for Leicester after arriving from France, actually.
Keita’s physicality and energy has taken the Bundesliga by storm, but it could well be that like Chelsea did with Kante, one of Europe’s elite clubs will snare him.
In the summer last year, I wrote a rant as to why Liverpool were not targeting Kante when he was available for £30m.
It got criticised at the time, but in hindsight, I undeniably got that one right.
Jakob doesn’t think we’re capable of signing Keita, but it would be mighty nice to see us giving it our best shot.