At the end of last season, Liverpool were surfing their way to the Premier League title. Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah both chose to extend with the club, everything was good and bad. It didn’t matter that Trent Alexander-Arnold chose Real Madrid, many thought. Six months later, Liverpool are in a situation where the safety himself, Van Dijk is underperforming, top scorer Salah is struggling on the bench, while the loss of Alexander Arnold becomes clearer with each league round. Now the Liverpool management must learn from this in negotiations with the next key player on an expiring contract.
Ibou Konaté has been one of the market’s most sought-after centre-backs for the past six months. The combination of a French international with the reigning Premier League champions and an expiring contract has seen Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona revolve around Anfield before the opportunity comes in January to negotiate with the centre-back. Then Real Madrid withdrew after a big drop in performance from the centre-back.
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That didn’t change for the Frenchman against Leeds in Saturday’s 3-3 draw. The centre-back was given 3/10 points on the player exchange by English Goal, after: “Still looks far from convincing when faced with his own goal. Went into an unnecessary tackle that gave Leeds a penalty, and was unable to block the equalising goal”.
Liverpool management are reportedly still interested in securing Konaté continuation with a contract extension, but should now stick their finger on the grass at Anfield and realise key players from last season are not playing to defend a hefty pay rise. Time to open up for the sale of Konaté in January.
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