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Bremen brought Keita into the club as a free agent last summer after leaving Liverpool.

But his return to the Bundesliga, where Keita made his name as an exciting midfield talent, has fallen flat too.

Too many injuries, too few games and now controversy, disputed accusations of selfishness and jeopardising the spirit of the dressing room punished by banishment from the first team.

The 29-year-old has been accused of refusing to travel with Bremen for their game against Bayer Leverkusen at the weekend after finding out he was not in the starting line-up.

On Tuesday night, the story took a grim twist when, hours after announcing his suspension, Bremen came out to condemn racist abuse directed towards him on social media.

That support was unwavering but, in broader terms, Keita’s future at the club seems far from certain less than a year after he joined.

“As a club, we won’t tolerate Naby’s behaviour,” said Clemens Fritz, Bremen’s head of professional football, in the statement announcing the midfielder had been suspended from the first team for the remainder of the season.

“He let his team down in a time of difficulty surrounding our recent run of form and squad availability and put his own interests above those of the team.

Bremen lost that match to Leverkusen 5-0, a result which saw the latter win the Bundesliga title.

“After finding out yesterday that he wasn’t in the starting XI, Naby decided not to come with us to the ground, but instead chose to travel home,” alleged Fritz.

The claim brought an angry response from Keita, but one that failed to address the specific allegation that he had abandoned the team when he discovered he would be on the bench.

But he made just 49 Premier League starts across five seasons at Anfield.

His spell on Merseyside was a decorated one: a Champions League, a Premier League, an FA Cup, a Carabao Cup, a UEFA Super Cup and a Club World Cup.

There was an adductor injury ruling him out for five games, and another muscle injury for four, while he missed a game apiece due to a stomach bug and another illness.

Keita has played just 109 Bundesliga minutes across one start and four substitute appearances.

Now made unavailable for selection and removed from the first-team group, he will not be adding to them this season.

Bremen declined to elaborate to The Athletic on what might happen in the summer, insisting the club’s focus was entirely on the final five games of a season that has led them to 12th in the table but still theoretically at risk of facing a relegation play-off.

Yet with Keita less than a year into the three-year contract he signed last summer, the club appear limited to three options: sell him in the summer, loan him out or attempt to integrate him back into the first team.

After the decline that has led to Keita’s lowest moment yet, none of those paths will be easy to walk.