Jurgen Klopp was not surprised by Naby Keita s impressive Liverpool debut against West Ham, as he always expected the midfielder to settle in quickly at his new club.
Guinea international Keita was signed by Liverpool last year for a reported £53million, though he stayed at RB Leipzig for the 2017-18 season.
Liverpool s midfield was often said to be a problem area in the last campaign due to a lack of creativity following the departure of Philippe Coutinho, while they were also hampered at times by injuries.
But Keita produced an all-action display as the Reds hammered West Ham 4-0 at Anfield on Sunday, benefiting from the hard work of his team-mates to make an instant impact.
Absolutely a good performance, of course, Klopp said about Keita in his post-match news conference.
A debut and tonight s winner.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC)
After six weeks in I don t make the difference between a new player and another player because for me, it is of similar importance to Millie [James Milner] and Gini [Georginio Wijnaldum] are ready to make the next step in their development as well.
So Naby is in because he s a really good footballer and I ve said it from the beginning that he s obviously settled really quick and has a similar style of play in a similar position as he did at Leipzig.
He can play different positions of course, but I think No.8 is his best in the moment, so that s all cool.
He has a lot of help from the players around. Sadio [Mane] works really hard and the same with Gini and Millie and Robbo [Andrew Robertson] in this case, so that s really good. I m pleased, absolutely, but actually that s what we expected.
