Naby Keita has been in fine attacking form of late but a studs-up tackle during our 5-0 Old Trafford victory saw him miss yesterday’s win over Preston North End.
Our No.8 was on the receiving end of a Paul Pogba challenge that has injured his shin but now images have circulated online of the severe lack of shin pad underneath his socks.
Several Twitter users have shared images of the 26-year-old since discovering this interesting fashion decision:
Keita is the latest player to join the tiny shinpad club 😆 pic.twitter.com/FnR9HzSfY7
— Soccer AM (@SoccerAM) October 27, 2021
Naby Keita uses his AirPods case for shin pads 👂
Pass it on. pic.twitter.com/7vG0pNNxdL
— GOAL (@goal) October 25, 2021
Rate Naby Keita’s shin pads out of 10 👀#LFC #Liverpool #MUNLIV pic.twitter.com/AUnf8pc0cl
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) October 23, 2021
Why is Naby Keita wearing fag packets for shin-pads? pic.twitter.com/PPZtPZqAk2
— Sunday League (@SundayShoutsFC) October 27, 2021
Although this is quite a comical image of how small his shin protection is, given his injury record and the fact that he missed the last game with a shin injury, maybe it’s time for Guinean to wear bigger pads?
It’s fair to assume that the smaller the better in terms of control of the leg and reducing obstruction whilst running with and controlling the ball, but we would rather have a fit and firing Naby for longer and see more goals like his last three against Palace, Atletico and United.
Hopefully, he should be back for the weekend’s game against Brighton and possibly some of the staff have encouraged him to upgrade to a larger model.
The sooner he’s back on the pitch and scoring goals, the better!
Wish footballers, and especially LFC players, would use hockey pads to protect themselves. Saved me many injuries.