Naby Keïta's Liverpool future caused fans and media concern as he was strangely called-up by Guinea national team despite still being injured..

2022-09-09 19:41

Naby Keïta



Liverpool‘s Guinea international midfielder Naby Keïta caused fans and media around the world to be in a hot debate over his future again as he was strangely called-up to the Guinea national team, despite still being injured.


Keïta has previously been confirmed by head coach Jürgen Klopp that since playing against Manchester City in the Community Shield at the end of July. The midfielder has been recovering from injuries and has not participated in any training session.


When the club announced the squad list for this season's Champions League group stage last week, the player' name did not appear on the list, and Klopp also confirmed that the midfielder will be out for a while. While people are worried about Keïta's physical condition and prospects at the club, his home country Guinea insists on recruiting him into the country's national team, which inevitably makes people feel extremely puzzled by this bizarre situation.


Even though Liverpool ECHO has brought news that Keïta will not play any games until he fully recovers, Guinea national team head coach Kaba Diawara is confident that Keïta will be able to catch up within two weeks and coming back to play for his country. Diawara even went on to say that in addition to continuing to observe Keïta's injury, he is also an important key player for the team, and that the national team would be impossible to perform without Keïta no matter on or the pitch.


Sky Sports Germany's resident correspondent Florian Plettenberg suddenly broke the news on his personal official Twitter account last month, alleging Keïta was playing not enough games and unhappy at Liverpool, thus shelving the discussion of contract renewal, while he also plans to leave the Merseyside giants and return to former club RB Leipzig


As soon as the news came out, many British media reporters and some Liverpool fans immediately became impulsive. Many people has blindly jumped to the conclusion by referring and criticized the 27-year old Guinea international player for faking injuries in order to leave the club just like former players Phillippe Coutinho and Raheem Sterling.


However, Klopp said that Keïta had indeed missed training due to injury the day before the club's previous Premier League game against Manchester United, and it was unclear how long he would be out next. The midfield general's injury will be assessed before giving the exact return date, but Klopp frankly is very pessimistic about Keïta's injury.


In addition, all renowned journalists had also admitted that they never learned from insiders or even Keïta himself or his agent that the player was unhappy and he wanted to leave the club and return to the Bundesliga.


It is also worth mentioning that it is not a new thing that African countries insist on calling-up injured players to play for their national team. As early as the beginning of this year, the Senegalese national team insisted on calling-up injured winger Ismaïla Sarr into the team. Senegal was immediately criticized by his EFL Championship employers Watford. Similarly, his former teammate Emmanuel Dennis was also forcibly called up by the Nigerian national team without prior notice. In the same way, Nigeria was also slammed by the Hornets.