Ibrahima Konate won’t care to remember the afternoon of 22 November 2025 with much fondness.
The Frenchman is one of just five senior defenders that Arne Slot had available for selection for today’s match against Nottigham Forest, and he once again started alongside Virgil van Dijk at centre-back.
However, with Liverpool trailing 2-0 early in the second half, the Reds’ head coach took affirmative action in the 55th minute as he substituted the 26-year-old to bring on compatriot Hugo Ekitike in an attempt to salvage a result from a bleak situation.
Robinson rips into Konate
Konate looked dismayed as he trudged towards the bench, and his performance at Anfield drew a withering appraisal from Paul Robinson.
Speaking on punditry duty for BBC Radio 5 Live, the former England goalkeeper remarked: “The way Konate has played today, I reckon Ekitike could even drop in there and do a better job.”
Not a good day at the office for Konate, sadly
Liverpool’s number 5 has had to deal with plenty of criticism already this season, and even with Slot feeling compelled to roll the dice with an attack-minded substitution at 2-0 down, it’s still not a great reflection on the Frenchman’s performance to be withdrawn before the hour mark.
The Liverpool Echo lamented the 26-year-old’s ‘erratic distribution and hesitant defending’ during an ‘alarming first-half showing’, and whatever about the controversy surrounding Murillo’s opener, his defending for Nicolo Savona’s goal to double the lead just after half-time was frightening.
Konate allowed the Italian to breeze in front of him and then run off him, being left criminally unmarked as he fired past Alisson to deepen the Reds’ gloom even further.
It’s not the kind of performance which’ll help the France international to earn a new contract at Anfield, with just over seven months remaining on his current deal amid ongoing uncertainty over his future.
Even with Liverpool struggling for centre-back depth (and defensive depth in general), the Frenchman shouldn’t feel that his place in the line-up is guaranteed. This was a sobering afternoon for him, and for the rest of his teammates.
Think it is a no brainer now why guehi is number 1 priority in Jan. Put aside the below par performance of konate, we will be in trouble if injury hits our defence.
So many players are out of sorts, when you keep conceding goals in the end it will drain the confidence. You have to admit that we can’t defend, it should have been four nil. Not organised properly without the ball, not defending set pieces, which are the basics of the game. All this should have been improved upon on the training ground , and the manager is responsible he’s to blame. Right now it’s relegation from, yes that’s how bad we are. We are not going to win any away games the way we are playing, and if you start losing at home then we are in trouble. It’s gone beyond a crisis, we haven’t been this bad since the last days of Hodgson and Brendan Rodgers. FSG have to hurry up and change the manager. Because there’s far worse to come. When this many players are in a rut it’s down to the manager. Liverpool are without doubt the worst team defensively in the premier league, that alone should be enough to get rid of slot. Only a clueless manager would keep playing his best midfielder, our best player this season at right back. Totally clueless.
We lost 1 coach to Ajax. Could he be the problem to our defence collapse? The coach is now available again after being released by Ajax. Should we get him back?
When Van Dijk is inconsistent, the whole backline falls apart. Konate ends up over-committing and gets caught out of position. Liverpool’s high line doesn’t work anymore without a proper shield like Fabinho, leaving the defence constantly exposed. Fullbacks push too high, the midfield gets bypassed easily, and the centre-backs have to cover huge spaces. In short, when Van Dijk is off-form, the entire Liverpool defence collapses. By Jan, they need a solid defensive midfielder and at least one elite centre-back to fix this.
Good analysis mate. Who is the dm you reckon we need? I suppose the center back is guehi?
For now we have Endo. Why is he not being used? We too slow, our players make too many touches of the ball and the spaces quickly closed. We don’t have that element of surprise. We are just too predictable.
Liverpool has Endo, Gomez and Ramsey who can aptly make up for the injured starters. Then Slot benches Robertson and starts with Kerkez, and we end up losing most times he starts!! Konate is not helping Liverpool, he is costing us games big time! Sell him, let him go! Bring in Guehi, and get in two more quality defenders. Diomande is one of my picks.
Slot is all at sea at the moment. He better get Liverpool winning soon or his job will be on the line come January. It is one thing to lose on the balance of play, quite another to collapse horribly with no recovery plan in place. Slot has no come back plan.