Liverpool’s pursuit of Naby Keita finally materialised when RB Leipzig decided to sell the 22-year-old midfielder with the condition that he’d only be joining us next season.
We earlier carried a report which claimed that Keita could be brought in by Liverpool earlier than next summer, should Leipzig struggle in their Champions League group.
The crunch game was against Besiktas and the Bundesliga side lost 2-0, which left them at the bottom of their group. With a real danger of the side not making it to the knockout stages, Keita was thought to be in line for a quick move to Liverpool. However, the Liverpool Echo claims that no such deal can take place.
While we have also struggled with our performances in Europe, the previous game saw us draw 1-1 against Spartak Moscow, despite dominating the game, the Echo claims that there is no clause in Keita’s deal that would facilitate a move to the Premier League side in the winter window.
We might be looking to renegotiate with Leipzig regarding the £48million that we’ve decided to pay for him and maybe adding additional funds could help the deal.
There seems to be some angry heads at Leipzig, as manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has been feeling the pressure in his side’s first ever European campaign. He had a bit of a go at Keita after the loss.
The manager almost stated that Keita didn’t have the stomach and fight to play for Leipzig and was quoted by the Daily Star as saying:
“Naby was not good today, maybe it would have been better not to have taken him.
“For me, as a coach, it is important to see who I can rely on at such moments, which players stand up and who is ready to fight against what is going on on the field.”
This could be the start of an ugly period for Keita and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense for the manager to have a go at a player who was incredible last season.
We also have to get our act together as we are a great attacking side but something is still missing in the midfield as well as in the defence. The earlier Keita comes, the quicker we might be able to plug the hole in midfield and maybe January will be a busy month for us.
