Liverpool lost a host of players who had played a big role in their success under Jurgen Klopp in 2023.
After a really difficult season in 2022/23, the time felt right for the Reds to begin a real changing of the guard.
It seems remarkable in a way, but Liverpool lost all of Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Milner, Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and Fabinho all in one go.
With them, the six players took 1,680 appearances, 210 goals and a massive haul of some of the biggest trophies in football.
Since leaving Anfield, though, things have not gone at all well for most of the group. One player now has hit rock bottom.
Naby Keita looking for new club
If you look through each of these players individually, they all gave plenty to Liverpool during their time at Anfield.
Some more than others, obviously, but they all very much played their part in what was a glorious period for the club.
Having left the comfort of Liverpool, it was always likely that each of the players would suffer some kind of downturn. All except Keita were past 30 or very close to it by the time they left, after all.
Only recently turned 28 at the time his Liverpool contract ran out, Keita is the exception to that. After a frustrating five years with the Reds, he still had the chance to rebuild his career.
Werder Bremen surprisingly signed Keita to bring him back to the Bundesliga, where he’d shone for RB Leipzig before his move to Liverpool.
READ MORE: Liverpool’s 27 most expensive signings of all time including Naby Keita
However, things went wrong for Keita right from the start. One year on from his arrival at Bremen, and the Guinean has made a grand total of five appearances for them.
This inevitably looks like bad business for the German side, and speaking to werder.de, the club’s director of football, Clemens Fritz, has admitted that Keita is training alone as he looks for a new team to join.
“It was a very open discussion, through which we arrived at a shared decision that we saw best for the situation,” says Fritz. “Firstly, we wanted to keep full concentration on the rest of our pre-season and the start of the new campaign, and, secondly, Naby had been thinking this way for some time.
“Since his situation within the team has not changed, he would like to look for a new challenge,” he adds. “Together with his agent, we want to sort this all out as soon as possible.”
Naby Keita facing rock bottom
You have to feel for Naby. On his day he is a really talented midfielder who had all the tools to be a roaring success at Liverpool.
But although he did certainly contribute to the Reds under Klopp, he really should have been a much more central figure.
After leaving Liverpool, the hope was that Keita could get himself back fit and show the world why the Reds spent almost £60m to buy him in 2018.
But things have gone from bad to worse for Naby. With an injury record like his, it’s tough to see who would now take a punt on signing him.
As Fritz says, hopefully the situation can be sorted soon enough and Liverpool’s former No.8 can join a club where he can start to be himself again.
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