Jürgen Klopp says that he always believed that the qualities of Naby Keita would come to the fore after the midfielder scored in his first league start of the season against Bournemouth on Saturday.
Just like in his first season for the club, it has been a frustrating time for the Guinea international who has battled injury along with trying to find a spot in the very competitive Liverpool midfield.
December was always going to be a challenging month for the European champions with a jam packed fixture list and therefore plenty of opportunities for fringe players to show their worth.
For the 24 year-old, that time came on the weekend where he was at his confident best, combining with Mo Salah on two occasions which sealed a very comfortable win.
Klopp is well known as a manager who not only has confidence in his players, but a great deal of patience too.
Basically if you are willing to put in the hard work, your time will come.
The Echo reported the thought process of Klopp.
He’s just been unlucky and in life you need luck always.
“He started really well Everyone forgot that and then he got injured and we’ve had two really good seasons.
“When you see a player like this, you ask why is he not playing week in, week out. Naby had injuries and then the team was in a really good shape so do you change?
“It’s not like when something’s working, you squeeze five more percent of the performance with another player."
Klopp also confirmed that there had been discussions between the pair.
“ Naby’s not been playing, I get that.
“So we stayed in contact and spoke a lot about it and in the end a player needs to have this evidence that his manager still believes in him.
“I was never in doubt about him and today has helped a lot, it’s really nice. Sometimes you have to talk to players.
“The boys got more and more used to each other, but then another injury came and he started again.
“This year, he wasn’t 100 percent when he started pre-season, but I was never in doubt about quality.”
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