The two problems created by Ibrahima Konate’s surprise Liverpool exit

So it transpires there was a farewell without fanfare. Arne Slot substituted two who were leaving Liverpool on Sunday, allowing Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson their ovations from the Anfield crowd. When Ibrahima Konate went off in the 89th minute, the temptation was to assume it permitted Joe Gomez a fine outing in Liverpool red.

Their longest-serving player has a year left on his contract, but admitted he is unsure if he will remain at the club. Slot seemed to have a full complement of centre-backs for next season; after all, Konate had said he was close to signing a new deal.

Not that close, perhaps. The draw with Brentford proved Konate’s goodbye. He will instead exit Liverpool next month. The two parties were too far part in their valuations. The gap became unbridgeable. And while Konate ranked on the lengthy list of Liverpool’s underachievers this season, their problems have been compounded.

They have bought two centre-backs who they deem the best young players in their position in Italy and France, in Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet respectively. They have the best in the world over the last decade, in Virgil van Dijk. But the captain will turn 35 in July. Jacquet is just 20, Leoni only 19. They have one game in English football between them, which ended in the former Parma player being stretchered off with a cruciate ligament injury which might mean he is not fully fit for the start of the season.

Then there is Gomez, no stranger to injuries himself; if he had a flawless fitness record, the Englishman may have begun more often when Konate was in indifferent form. Once again, Liverpool could lament letting Marc Guehi slip through their grasp last summer: the month while they waited, doing nothing, before putting in a bid on deadline day looks still more wasteful now. Guehi ended up at Manchester City four months later. At 25, he is at the peak of his powers. Konate’s have wavered somewhat but his age made him crucial in Liverpool’s succession planning.

And, yet again, the task for the summer after they spent £450m has grown. If not Gomez, they require a fourth central defender, and one on lesser wages than Konate demanded. But Hugo Ekitike’s achilles injury and Salah’s exit means much of the funds will have to be spent on the forward line. There is a need for at least one winger, perhaps two; Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig is a target but will not be cheap.

That Konate was able to ask for a sizeable sum after a season in which Liverpool conceded too many goals reflects other financial issues at Anfield. They had the largest wage bill in England last season; they might have done this year, too. The supersized salaries granted to a few – Salah, Van Dijk, Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak – may have empowered others to ask for more. It creates a further issue when Isak is not justifying his pay packet.

Liverpool have a self-sustaining model, as Slot likes to say. They have banked almost £300m in fees in his reign. But Konate is a £36m signing leaving on a free transfer; while talks about a new deal began as far back as 2023, when the director of football was Jorg Schmadtke, Richard Hughes’ predecessor, he has ended up running down his deal.

But Liverpool may feel that too many players have left in recent years without them recouping a fee; some, like Salah, Robertson, James Milner, Adam Lallana and Thiago Alcantara, were in their thirties and, in the cases of the first three, gave such good service Liverpool could have few regrets. But Gini Wijnaldum, Naby Keita and Divock Origi all went for free; include Konate and their combined cost comes to around £130m.

There are financial aspects; footballing ones, too. There are times this season when it seemed Liverpool would scarcely miss Konate; at Leeds in December, in comments that were soon overshadowed by Salah’s, Slot admitted that the Frenchman was “too much at the crime scene” as his mistakes multiplied. He had a better, though far from flawless, second half of the season and demonstrated a commitment to the cause by returning early from compassionate leave after the death of his father.

In five seasons, he has had two very good campaigns: his first in 2021-22, culminating in him playing in the Champions League final, and Slot’s first, in 2024-25, when Konate believed his partnership with Van Dijk was the best in Europe.

Perhaps that informed his salary demands and it will be instructive where Konate lands next; perhaps not a club of Liverpool’s level. But, after beginning Slot’s reign on the bench, he became a fixture in the side. He began 66 of Liverpool’s last 75 league games. In that respect, he leaves a hole next to an ever more overworked Van Dijk as Liverpool’s summer rebuilding job has grown bigger.