Naby Keita’s Performance Against Crystal Palace

A major discussion arose in the last few days about Naby Keita and the question that he might be better than Paul Pogba. This question not going to be answered in this piece. It is your choice to decide, but more importantly, this analysis will provide a depth look into Keita’s performance on Monday, when Liverpool visited the Selhurst Park. 

As you might know, Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 2-0 and Keita made a strong performance with 3 shots, 1 key pass, 5 tackles and 1 interception, so it is definitely worth a time and energy to put in, in order to get know Keita’s skills and abilities or even his role in the Klopp’s system. 

Naby Keitas career is rapidly rising due to the fact that four years ago, he played FC Istres in Ligue 2 where he was able to bring Gerard Houllier’s attention and joined the Red Bull Salzburg. In 2016, he had reached the next level with signing to Leipzig where played under Hassenhüttl and his pressing system. That can be one of the major reason for Jürgen Klopp for bringing Keita to Liverpool. 

Klopp got famous in Dortmund by his counter-pressing system this philosophy appeared in Liverpool, but it requires players with good pressing ability, like Firmino. Klopp’s system relied on congesting the space in order to use the press to get the ball immediately after losing that and then countering the opponent. Keita can contribute to this more than Emre Can did, due to his skill in timing the press and using cover shadow during that. Also, his tactical awareness helps him to press really effectively. In addition, Keita is quite resistant to press due to his ball control skills. He is able to control the ball in tight areas and with his pace, he can progress quickly which also another factor that helpful in Klopp’s philosophy. Consequently, he is able to play almost everywhere in the midfield, but most likely in a #8 or #10 role. He can be utilised widely because of his skills which appear in defensive phase  pressing  and in attacking phase for example shots. 

Moreover, Keita could bring some unpredictable element to the game through his great dribbling ability. 

Position and role 

As you can see from the teams line-ups, Jürgen Klopp uses his usual 4-3-3 formation, where Keita got a position on the left side of the three in midfield. Consequently, his role is to be a box-to-box like Milner.

However, started with a centre-oriented manner, thus the position in the #10 space during the first 15 minutes. While he stayed in the centre in order to provide a passing option, but he had been marked tightly by McArthur which means his involvement in the play was nearly zero.

His other duty in th