Klopp insists Liverpool won't sell Keita this summer
Cameron Smith
- 22 Aug 2022 12:03 CDT
- 3 min read
Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp has insisted that Guinean midfielder Naby Keita will not be sold this summer, despite the former RB Leipzig star only having one year left on his contract at Anfield.
The five-year deal Keita signed upon joining Liverpool in 2018 will expire next summer, but the Reds aren't planning on offloading him this window.
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Klopp has told Keita that he will not be leaving the club despite the current situation of his contract. The German head coach has reiterated that Liverpool's midfield doesn't need strengthening this summer, and believes that his current crop of options is good enough for the campaign.
It's reportedly believed that Keita is unhappy that a contract renewal hasn't been agreed, and reports from Germany have suggested that Borussia Dortmund are interested in signing the Liverpool man.
However, Klopp has now revealed that Keita will not be leaving the Anfield club this summer.
What has Klopp said?
"Selling Naby now? And not replacing him? No, that is not possible! Of course not. It is not the plan," he said.
"We are done [in the transfer market], it’s not that we think a player can go and we don’t replace him. There’s no chance. No. Naby will not go but if he would - but he will not do - then there must be a replacement of course, it’s clear. And yeah, sure, it would be very difficult to replace him."
Klopp continued, backing the current selection of midfielders in the Liverpool squad. "Yes [we have what we need], when they are all fit, 100 percent, but even then we always look to strengthen…but it must be the right player.
"And if the right player is not available then we tend to say ‘ok we deal with what we have before we sign a player who is not 100 per cent the right player.
"So this situation never changed. Now we have more injuries than we would have imagined, and now would be cool to have a new midfielder in, of course now. And then there would be another fact: we are not in charge of what we spend, we are not. That’s the situation, we get things told and then we deal with it. It was always the same, never different."
