Struggling Van Dijk will pass the torch to King Konate

Sam McGuire

• Updated: 12 Apr 2023 17:35 BST
• 4 min read

It is well known that Liverpool need a midfield overhaul this summer. The rebuild doesn’t end there though with Jurgen Klopp soon needing to address the situation at centre-back.

The Reds have five senior central defenders on their books right now in Virgil Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Nathaniel Phillips. By the end of the 2024/25 campaign, four of those could be plying their trade elsewhere.

Matip’s existing deal expires when the 2023/24 season comes to an end and there have been no reports indicating the club or the player are looking to extend. Phillips is finally expected to leave the club at the end of the current campaign with the 26-year-old wanting regular first-team football. Gomez, despite signing a new deal last summer, has struggled this term and could well be sacrificed if the right offer is made as the club look to raise funds.

Then there’s Van Dijk. The Dutchman is 32 in July and he’s been out of form this season. His existing deal with the Merseyside club sees him through until the summer of 2025 and, as of yet, there have been no rumours of a contract extension. The Reds rarely tie players in their 30s to long-term deals and it is unlikely a player of Van Dijk’s standing will be happy to take a 12-month rolling deal while he still feels he can play at a high level. He will no doubt want long-term security.

So, unless something drastic happens, the Reds could well be parting ways with the Dutch colossus in two years' time. The assumption is that finding a replacement isn’t going to be easy or cheap.

But they might have his heir at the club already.

Konate is making a statement with his performances as of late. He was arguably Liverpool’s best player in the Champions League final last season and he really caught the eye towards the back end of the 2021/22 campaign. He scored in both legs of the Champions League quarter-final versus Benfica and then netted in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.

An injury-riddled 2022/23 has prevented him from really kicking on but whenever he’s in the team, the Reds do appear to be a better unit. The €40 million 2021 summer arrival is far from perfect and there can, at times, be an over-reliance on his physicality to get out of tricky situations, he does have it in him to almost single-handedly stop opposition attacks.

In the 2-2 draw with Arsenal, he was deployed in a wider position despite starting as a centre-back. Klopp trialled a different shape at Anfield against the Premier League leaders with Trent Alexander-Arnold pushing into midfield when the Reds had possession.

As a result, Konate was having to cover wider areas, as seen below.

The former RB Leipzig man perhaps naively stepped up for the Arsenal opener and he should’ve stopped Gabriel Martinelli before the Brazilian was able to cross the ball in for the second, but the Liverpool No. 5 wasn’t the only player who could’ve done immeasurably better in both situations.

His performance against the Gunners was far from flawless but the game seemed to swing in the home side’s favour once Konate started to dominate. That cannot be a coincidence.

The France international attempted six tackles on the day and won five - the joint most in the match along with Thomas Partey. Konate also won 100% of his aerial duels, made three interceptions and finished the game with a pass success rate of 82%.

A lot of what he did can be quantified but some of it cannot. For example, he put in a crunching tackle on Granit Xhaka just after the break that sparked an Anfield roar. He kept winning the ball high up and this allowed the Reds to pin their opponents right back. The second half was about as one-sided as they come and the No. 5 was key to that.

By comparison, Van Dijk attempted just three tackles and won one. The Dutchman made two interceptions but won just 40% of his aerial duels. While Konate didn’t cover himself in much glory for either goal, neither did the No. 4.

The difference was that the nine-cap international seemed to react to this and it spurred him on whereas Van Dijk didn’t take it up a notch. It isn’t quite yet the passing of the torch but more matches like this - with Konate dominating - could see him displace the ex-Southampton man as the leader in defence for Liverpool.