Liverpool made it three wins from three in the Premier League on Monday night as their perfect start to the season continued - but there was another full house that Jurgen Klopp will be celebrating.
As well as the Reds having won all three of their games so far, placing them behind only Leicester City in the table, Naby Keita is also about to enter new territory at Anfield.
Keita has now started in all three league fixtures Liverpool have played so far - against Leeds United, Chelsea and Arsenal - which is a run of the length he didn’t manage once last season, according to Transfermarkt.
The most that the Guinean has managed to string together in the league is four consecutive starts, achieved the season before last, and even then only twice, but that is something that he could well match against Aston Villa, especially given Thiago Alcantara is expected to still be missing.
Include the two matches that he started at the end of last season against Chelsea and Newcastle United and the 25-year-old midfielder has strung five consecutive league matches together - something simple for most, but certainly not him.
Keita has never missed more than seven matches in a row through injury but always been disrupted by niggling issues, like when he dropped out of the Sheffield United game in the warm-up at the turn of the year.
On The Debrief podcast Theo Squires said: "Keita had a fantastic game and has really taken to his role in this Liverpool team. He is dominating games a bit more with his pressing style.
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"When Klopp first came in, it was Adam Lallana leading the press, and it’s almost that sort of performance from him [against Arsenal].
"Arsenal love to keep it in that backline and he was the one who was straight on Bernd Leno and straight on the defenders."
Keita has looked faster, stronger and fitter at the start of the season than he has done for a lot of his Liverpool career, but the task now is to maintain that level of form, sharpness, and fitness.
That has always been the challenge for the player - though his manager Klopp never waivered in his trust in the ex-RB Leipzig star.
"It was just unlucky and in life you need luck always. He started [his Liverpool career] really well – everybody forgot that – then got injured. [I was] never in doubt about his quality," Klopp once said.
That was back at the start of December 2019, though it could easily have been on multiple other occasions since Keita’s £52 million switch in 2018.
The gifted midfielder’s quality has never been in doubt, and now with a run of games under his belt, and Thiago out until after the international break, Keita has the perfect chance to kick on once again.
