‘Strangest’ Liverpool player is about to begin six weeks that will change his career – RTK View

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Naby Keita is about to begin the defining months of his Liverpool career. The Guinean needs to get this right.

Thiago picked up an injury on Saturday as Liverpool drew 2-2 with Fulham. It was one of many disappointing things about that game – one that the Reds need to rectify quickly.

But who can fix the Thiago problem? The Spaniard is one of the world’s best midfielders and Liverpool will miss him for six weeks, per the Athletic. There’s no getting around that. The player who steps into the XI in his place faces a massive task.

That player appears to be Naby Keita, who will reportedly return from illness imminently. The Guinean is now the midfielder most suited to a starting place, with James Milner a veteran option and Harvey Elliott an inexperienced one.

And Keita, after all, should be the option here. He was a massive signing from RB Leipzig and at 27, he’s right in his prime years. There’s little doubt that Jurgen Klopp should count on Keita to be stepping up right now.

But it’s not that routine, In fact, Keita is stepping into the defining months of his Liverpool career.

Naby Keita and his Liverpool career

Jamie Carragher summed Keita up nicely towards the end of last season. He labelled him the ‘strangest player’ he’d ever seen while talking with the Liverpool Echo.

“He’s the strangest player I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I’ll watch him play and not be convinced then I’ll go on Twitter and someone’s put some stats up [to show he’s played well].

“He almost ticks the boxes for all that if you’re crunching the numbers.”

Keita ticks those boxes so well that Klopp was saying ‘wow’ after a five-minute cameo in the Community Shield. The 27-year-old is fantastic at his best – nigh-on perfect.

And yet we don’t know what his future looks like. We don’t even know what it should look like, actually, as Keita’s contract expires at the end of this season. This will be the last major contract of his career – one slap, bang in the middle of his prime years. He will want to be paid like an elite midfielder for one of the world’s best teams.

But Keita simply hasn’t delivered like that consistently for Liverpool. If he wants that wage from the Reds, they’ve got to see how he’s a big part of their long-term future and the next two months will show that.

Thiago is out, there’s a first-XI place waiting and Keita has the chance to show it belongs to him. If he fails, it’s hard to see how he gets the contract he wants for the end of the season.

The game against Manchester United coming up could be decisive, then. Keita was phenomenal against them last year – a repeat performance could prove the making of his Liverpool career.