Injury set to rob Naby Keita of a golden opportunity v Atalanta

Add as preferred source on Google

Injury looks set to rob Naby Keita of his golden opportunity v Atalanta. It feels like we’ve been in this situation before.

Naby Keita likely won’t face Atalanta on Wednesday. The Guinean missed training on Tuesday, per the Liverpool Echo, after going off against Leicester City.

Keita played well, too. He completed 88% of his passes, created a chance, won a tackle, made an interception – he wasn’t Man of the Match of anything, but it was encouraging.

But off he went on 54 minutes. The latest injury for Liverpool in an alarming period for them.

Just about every player has been missing for at least a game. Gini Wijnaldum and Curtis Jones are the only midfielders who haven’t, for instance.

So this was a chance for Keita. With Fabinho in defence, and Thiago, Jordan Henderson & Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain injured, he could have had back-to-back starts.

Keita hasn’t had that since starting the 7-2 defeat against Aston Villa. He picked up an injury right after that and didn’t play for a month.

So consecutive games would have been good for Keita. The injuries create opportunities for others, after all, and he needs that.

We believe Keita is quite far down the pecking order right now. Below Jones, it seems. But he needs opportunities to correct that.

Now was his chance. But again, Keita is out injured. That’s certainly what usually happens whenever he starts getting things together.

Transfermarkt has him down as having eight injuries as a Liverpool player before this season. So that makes it at least ten that we know of.

It’s hard to see how Keita ever secures himself a consistent place at Liverpool with that record. Instead, we expect Jones to play well with Wijnaldum while the £53m man recovers.

And that will only solidify Keita as far further down the pecking order than his talent justifies.