No idea why you think Ketia is a 1:1 replacement for Gini because he's not and to my knowledge NO ONE from the team (from Klopp, to Pep to anyone in management) has said "we expect Naby will replace Gini's minutes".
Keita's struggles with fitness are well known, but games played isn't necessarily the best measurement because often times someone can be on the bench and never make it into the game. Would rather see how many games he was AVAILABLE to play.
We play with 3 midfielders and currently have 7 on the team (Fab, Hendo, Thiago, Keita, Ox, Milner, Jones) which is enough IMO. It is pretty clear Fab, Hendo and Thiago will be the regular starters and we also know Klopp is not the most active when it comes to rotation. Gini's departure hopefully means Jones gets more minutes as main rotation player and the other 3 should be able to handle the minutes needed during the season.
So we don't replace Gini and stick with what we've got.
An injury prone Keita and Ox.
A 35 year old Milner.
Jones as the backup to Thiago/Hendo.
I'm done stressing my point to people about Keita and Ox. People will hope on whatever they like to make them feel better. I'm extremely confident there will come a time this season when Keita, Ox, Thiago and Hendo are out injured at the same time. That's the biggest injury prone midfield in the top 6.
We'll have a midfied of Fab, Jones and Milner and we'll be creating jack sh*t. The excuse will be "we didn't envision this many injuries".
Just like the fsg thing I'm done with this.
Keita, Ox and Thiago have played 176 games in three years between them.
Gini played 110.
Three guys only played 66 more games. That's who we're relying on to replace Gini. Make no mistake it's replacing.
It'll be utter stupidity if we rely on Keita and Ox. I don't think for one minute that Klopp wants to rely on those but his hand will be forced once again should he have to.
Logged