I like Keita but his situation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You can afford to carry 1 midfielder who’s a bit of a wildcard but we’ve a stack of them and we need more reliability and durability. In my opinion I’d have given Keita the riskier contract over Henderson but we made the decision and we live with it.
Sensibly put, and I'd agree on the contract point too.
Based on what parameter exactly? I mean Henderson played 3.846 minutes to Naby's 2.083. So only in terms of actually being on the pitch, there's a massive difference. Performance level is a bit more subjective, but personally, I don't feel there was that much between them on that front either. Obviously, Henderson playing so much more, and at his age, meant his form would dip at some points of the season, but I rather his constant presence, even if he's not always at his best, than Naby's arguably more consistent form, but far patchier availability.
Based on their performances when playing. Your points are all fair, but someone bizarrely suggested in Keita's thread that he should feel thankful to be here given the number of sub par performances and despite the fact that literally applies to everyone of our players who've had a few of those, it's just odd to choose him as the midfielder to complain about sub par performances about when last season Jones, Hendo, Chamberlain and Milner all had more (and only Hendo was closer to 'ever present', as you rightly pointed out).
Important to remember Keita played in 23 league games last season, and was available as an unused sub in 6 others (that's available for 29 games, which is how many league games Fabinho played by the way). He missed 5 games around the month of November with a hamstring injury, and then missed only only one more league game in March with a knee issue.