In 2017, Naby Keita was one of the most exciting midfielders in the world. He’d impressed so much at Red Bull Salzburg and then RB Leipzig, in fact, that Liverpool agreed to trigger his £48m release clause – plus pay a premium to make the deal worth over £50m – in order to snap him up ahead of any competition.
The Guinea international linked up with the Reds ahead of the 2018/19 season and expectations were so high he was handed Steven Gerrard’s famous no.8 shirt – which had been vacant since the club legend left in 2015.
He arrived at Anfield as the club’s record signing – surpassing the record £35m paid to Newcastle for Andy Carroll in 2011 – but ended up being one of the least impressive purchases of the Jurgen Klopp era. Here’s what went wrong for Keita, and what he is up to in 2025.
Keita’s Struggles at Liverpool
Keita made a steady if not particularly inspiring start to life in England, making 16 starts in the Premier League and scoring two goals. He ended the season early, though, after picking up an injury in May which kept him from playing any part in the Champions League final victory vs Tottenham.
Fitness issues would persist in his second season, keeping him on the fringes of the squad for the bulk of the campaign but he did play in the last nine league matches consecutively as Liverpool won their first-ever Premier League title.
Those injury concerns of the first few campaigns would foreshadow what was to come of the midfielder at Anfield as he struggled to nail down regular game time. With that in mind, it felt inevitable that he would leave at the end of the 2022/23 season having played in just eight league matches that season. That said, Keita later told The Guardian that he was actually offered a new contract but wanted left to get more minutes:
“I had the option of extending my stay at Liverpool but, after five years, I wanted to get more playing time elsewhere.”
Disaster at werder bremen
In June 2023, Keita returned to the Bundesliga signing as a free transfer for Werder Bremen. However, his time in Germany was nothing short of a disaster.
He essentially moved for the opportunity to play, revealing: “If I wanted the money, I would have chosen to sign somewhere other than Bremen. Here, all that motivated me was to have the opportunity to play every weekend, enjoy myself and give pleasure.”
The midfielder could not get the playing time that he desired, though, mustering just five appearances for a total of 107 minutes in his debut campaign at Bremen. With that in mind, he noted: “Unfortunately, things haven’t gone according to plan.”
Playing a key role in that was a falling out between player and club. There was an incident where Keita reportedly refused to get on the team bus after being told he wouldn’t be starting a match, which led to manager Ole Werner informing the press that the player ought to find himself a new club:
“I do believe that we have been very, very humane and very, very transparent with him at all times since he joined us.
Keita is not our issue right now, and I believe that it’s best for both sides to simply look ahead and into the future, to see what good solutions Naby can find for himself and what solutions we can find without him.”
Clemens Fritz, Werder Bremen’s head of football, also slammed Keita’s behaviour, saying he ‘let his team down’. The midfielder denied the allegations of ill-discipline but his last game for the German outfit came in March 2024 and he has not played a competitive game of football since.
Now 30, the Guinea international left Bremen in January 2024 after agreeing to join Hungarian top-flight club Ferencvarosi TC on loan, with the deal including a permanent purchase option.
Interestingly enough, his coach in Hungary just so happens to have a big link to Liverpool. Indeed, Ferencvarosi are currently managed by former Reds forward Robbie Keane.
The Irishman, now 44, also arrived in the winter but hasn’t found the chance to play Keita who is still awaiting his debut for his new team. As of 8 February, he got his first minutes in the reserve team with Keane watching on from the sidelines. The club site reported that he could ‘soon make his debut for our first team’ after coming on at halftime and delivering ‘good movements, accurate passes and ball possession’.
Considering that Liverpool paid £50m for him in 2018 and yet his current market value is less than £1m and he’s playing reserve team football in Hungary, it has been quite the fall from grace for Keita over the past seven years.
