It’s kind of been the story of Ibrahima Konate’s entire Liverpool career. No matter how good he is, he’s always in the shadow of Virgil van Dijk.
Against Sunderland on Wednesday evening, the Liverpool skipper was named the Player of the Match after he scored the winner. Though his centre-back partner could feel a little hard done by following his defensive showing against the Black Cats.
There were two standout moments for Konate. Early on in the game, he showed great speed and awareness to track Brian Brobbey’s run and block his goalbound effort. The pair tangled again later on with the Liverpool No5 managing to get a toe to the ball to execute a perfect tackle in what was an incredibly dangerous situation with the Sunderland No9 lining up to strike an effort at goal from 10 yards out.
These two instances capped off a fine Konate showing. He also completed 88% of his attempted passes, won 100% of his ground duels and came out on top in 83% of his aerial duels.
Against Newcastle last month, the Frenchman put in a monstrous showing for the Reds upon his return to the starting XI. He found a teammate with 87% of his attempted passes, he made 10 clearances, won two tackles and 100% of his aerial duels.
He also found the back of the net late on to give Arne Slot’s side a 4-1 win.
Sandwiched between these two showings was a game against Manchester City. It was a contest Liverpool lost and some did blame the No5 for losing a header to Erling Haaland in the build-up to the City equaliser. Losing a header to a 6ft5 striker isn’t really an error though. It happens.
Konate did quite well in the game overall, completing 91% of his attempted passes, finding a teammate with 67% of his attempted long passes, winning four tackles and making three interceptions. He also won 67% of his ground duels.
Lost header aside, it was another good showing.
When he’s in this sort of form, the fact Liverpool haven’t yet been able to tie Konate down to a new, long-term deal becomes even more frustrating.
The former RB Leipzig defender is out of contract at the end of the season and is reportedly being courted by a number of big European clubs. Real Madrid looked to be his most likely destination but recent reports coming out of Spain seem to suggest Los Blancos have distanced themselves from the 26-cap international due to his wage demands.
PSG are another club to show an interest in the powerhouse centre-back. The Parisians want to bring him home. He’s being eyed as a replacement for Marquinhos who looks set to leave the French capital in the summer.
Liverpool, meanwhile, continue to be in negotiations with Konate’s representatives as they look to strike a deal that suits everyone. While giving the 26-year-old a significant salary increase might seem risky given how inconsistent he can be, the market for defenders right now is volatile.
The Reds have just parted with £60million to sign 20-year-old Jeremy Jacquet. While highly rated, he is relatively inexperienced and will need to be developed.
They would have to stump up big money for Alessandro Bastoni or Nico Schlotterbeck, two centre-backs linked with moves to Anfield. One-time transfer target Marc Guehi just moved to Manchester City and is believed to be on £300,000-per-week.
A balance needs to be struck though.
On his day, Konate is brilliant. His days, however, aren’t quite as often as many would like them to be.
Slot even acknowledged this following the win over Sunderland, saying: "I was pleased to see how we defended. Ibou played a great game against Brobbey who is always difficult to play against. Impressed but not surprised. He’s an example, almost of our season, he’s been so unlucky.
"He’s played games where he’s been so good for 89 minutes and then one moment ruins our game, his game. It’s not always about him but a few times that has happened and then everyone is focused on his mistake.
“But footballers make mistakes and not always the ball goes in. I was just asked about the last 10 minutes and I said the good thing was we didn’t concede a chance.
"Against City we didn’t concede a chance after the first minute until the 84th minute, then we let one in. So it was good to hardly concede a chance and Ibou was a big part of that, together with Virgil. But I liked the mentality of the whole team.”
The Liverpool boss is likely talking about the 3-3 draw with Leeds at Elland Road. The Dutch tactician singled him out after the game after he gave away a penalty at 2-0.
“Unfortunately for him, he does a lot of things well, but he has been a bit too much at the crime scene, that is something I’ve heard people saying before in England. So that means that he’s been involved in goals we’ve conceded, but if you are a centre-back that happens in football.
“Today, it was a tackle that came from effort. He tried to do everything to block the cross. The ball went out, the player already went down a little bit, and then there was contact.”
This feast or famine approach to his game is likely why he’s not signed a new contract with the reigning Premier League champions yet.
He no doubt sees himself as an elite level centre-back who has captained his national team and is wanted by European royalty. It strengthens this hand in negotiations.
Liverpool value him but also know first hand how erratic his performances can be. Is he worth Van Dijk money to them when he’s not as stable as the Dutchman? There’s a middle ground to be struck and hopefully it is.
The market for centre-backs right now isn’t favourable for clubs and the Reds might be best with sticking with that they already know.
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