The Ibrahima Konaté Stat Showing Liverpool's Improvement

Ibrahima Konaté looks back to his best, even outperforming Virgil van Dijk at his key attribute. Other Ibou stats explain why he and Liverpool have improved.

This week’s free newsletter looked at Liverpool’s ability to restrict their opponents’ chances once the Reds hold a one-goal advantage. A big part of this has been thanks to the return of form and fitness of Ibrahima Konaté.

It remains to be seen if the latter ‘f’ will hold. In each of his first three campaigns with the Reds, Konaté played somewhere between 43.5 and 49.0 per cent of the possible minutes. He is at 92.5 in 2024/25, after only being on the bench for the season opener.

Not that his absences have all been down to injuries. The French international was only unavailable for two games in his debut season, Joël Matip’s fine form often keeping him on the bench. If that felt fair, being kept out of the side by Jarell Quansah in his rookie season shows how Konaté’s performance level dipped at the end of the Jürgen Klopp era.

He looks to be back to his best. It’s remarkable that the 25-year-old has regained that level, considering the circumstances. He spent Euro 2024 entirely on the bench, then only made two pre-season appearances before needing to be introduced at half time against Ipswich. Konaté hit the ground running under Arne Slot, and (goal-costing error against Wolves aside) he has barely looked back.

The new Liverpool head coach deserves credit for the improvement. What instructions Slot has imparted to Konaté will remain between them. The player’s data, some of which was recently highlighted by Michael Reid on the LFCTV Review Show, helps illustrate that what has been asked of the French central defender has changed this season.