Liverpool are facing a mass exodus of any remaining Jürgen Klopp-era stars this summer, with Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson certain to leave and plenty of reason to believe goalkeeper Alisson Becker could also depart the club.
Add in speculation around key squad players like Curtis Jones and Joe Gomez and even some very tenuous suggestions that captain Virgil van Dijk could seek to follow Salah by agreeing a termination of the final year of his contract and, well, it’s a lot.
Oh, and there’s also
speculation about the future of Alexis Mac Allister, who arrived in Klopp’s final season as a World Cup winning star but has struggled like so many of his teammates this season. And then there’s Ibrahima Konaté, too.
Did I say that it’s a lot? Because it’s a lot. Especially given talk a year ago was of a side with all of the foundations well in place to be a consistent, dominating side in England and Europe for the foreseeable future. And now, well, I’m really burying the lede.
Because we’re here to talk about Konaté, out of contract at the end of the season and at this time last year heavily rumoured to be lining up a Real Madrid move. That came off the table when Konaté struggled, as so many of his teammates have this season.
It also meant that over the last couple of months there had been chatter about renewed interest in agreeing a new Liverpool deal, with the player himself coming out recently to suggest that was close. Today, though, The Echo’s Ian Doyle says yoink.
Snatching out any hope of an imminent new deal for Konaté out from under our collective noses, Doyle says it is in fact very much not close, setting up a situation where Konaté is likely to head to the World Cup this summer out of contract.
That seems less than ideal for Liverpool, who clearly have an awful lot to do on the back of a disaster season and with the fanbase inching towards open revolt given an apparent difference of opinion with upper management over head coach Arne Slot.
Konaté has certainly struggled a fair bit this season, but then that could be said for almost all of Liverpool’s players, most of whom—Konaté very much included—were in and on the fringes of the world class conversation even just a year ago.
There’s a reason why Madrid were being linked with him last summer, just as there was good reason they were being linked with Mac Allister, and why all of Liverpool’s likely to depart stars will easily find prestigious new football homes this summer.
Namely, they’re all fundamentally very, very good players. Far better than they’ve looked over the past year. Which does raise questions as to whether allowing so many of them to leave and sticking with Slot as seems likely will turn out to be wise.
