He played 40 games and went 10 months without an injury last season. 6 months of Keita is worth more than £5m just like it was worth keeping Can and Wijnaldum over what we could have got for them at the time.
£5m is nothing. That barely buys you a talented youngster these days.
Klopp is excited to have him back anyway, just seen the press conference. Naby (and Ibou) back in full training on Monday.
I agree with your £5m comment, but I never bought into the 40-game thing. It’s selective picking; that’s not how statistics work. Naby is a great talent, but his unavailability - over all of his career with us - makes him fully dispensable. People give the Matip example of last season too, but where is he now?
The difference between Matip and Keita is the he players who can fill their shoes. Gomez can be a capable deputy, and even though he had his nightmarish injuries, he’s fit. His form is the only concern. Konate has not yet been shown to be injury-prone. If Gomez, Konate and Matip were in the same category, then I’d look at Matip in the same light as Naby. But that’s not the case (yet). Regarding Naby, we have Ox, Jones, Hendo, Thiago all struggling with injuries, some more long term than others. Of that group, I’d only pick Thiago to hold on to, and maybe Hendo being the captain. But we need to replace Ox and Naby with players who can be available for most games. Otherwise, it’s a domino effect - overplaying the available players leads to more injuries.
