In what has been an exceptionally difficult season for Liverpool Football Club, few players individually have reflected those larger struggles quite so fully and thoroughly as Ibrahima Konaté.
The 26-year-old French centre half started the year widely tipped to join Real Madrid on a free in 2026 but his struggles have been so pronounced Madrid have by all accounts fully moved on.
His form has improved somewhat in the second half of the season—and the reasons for his struggles in the autumn can be explained
by his closeness to Diogo Jota, who was not just his teammate but his neighbour, as well as to the declining health of his father who passed in January—but his future remains in doubt.
In the last month or two, though, there have been growing rumblings he could end up signing a new Liverpool deal. And on that front, L’Equipe claim there has been real movement.
According to the French paper of record, the two sides “have never been closer” to a new deal, something that has been an ongoing discussion stretching back over 18 months now. That is a result, the paper claim, of what Konaté saw as a lowball offer at the start of it all, before the Madrid chatter heated up.
Regardless, Konaté is said to be determined to settle his future before heading to the World Cup in the summer, and the suggestion is then that a new Liverpool deal will be forthcoming soon—or not at all.
Hopefully, wherever Konaté is playing football next season, it’s within a less fraught personal framework than the one in which he has lived the past year. And hopefully that can help him to get back to his best.
