Jurgen Klopp has said Naby Keita’s excellent showing in training has convinced him to start the Guinean ‘soon’.
Keita played for just 13 minutes at Old Trafford, but was many Liverpool supporters’ Man of the Match in a game where many of our usual stars underwhelmed.
The 24-year-old offers an ability to dribble through midfield, play incisive passes but also get into the box and score. Liverpool fans are just desperate to see it more often having only been treated to glimpses of Keita’s skill-set since we signed him in the summer of 2018.
“Soon. I don’t know when he will start but Naby is one-and-a-half or two weeks in full training roundabout. And he looks good in training, really good,” he told the Evening Standard.
“They all look good in training, that’s why we made the changes that we made [at Old Trafford] because we really knew they can have an impact in that game. I was really happy.
“That was the best news of the whole day – not the result, not the goal we scored, which was nice – but that these three guys, very important players for us, in a moment when it’s not easy to have rhythm or get rhythm when you don’t play that much, can perform like this in a game.
“In training I see it a lot, so that was the best news. It will not be long anymore.”
We hope to see Keita in the starting XI tonight v Genk, which seems a perfect fixture for him to be given an opportunity.
Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum both looked in need of a rest on Sunday, perhaps because they featured heavily for England and the Netherlands respectively during the international break.
Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain though are waiting in the wings and we’re convinced one of the pair will establish himself as a starter before December.
If they do not, we’ll arguably still be relying on either the genius of the front-three or beautiful deliveries from the fullbacks to score goals.