You are bulding way too much hope on two young, currently badly injured lads, mate. Konaté has the experience and the ability of winning stuff with this club. This season wasn’t great for him, but who had a great season to be fair?
How will that winning experience be passed on if he leaves, and once Virgil leaves us next summer?
Also, why should Ibou not earn good money with us? At his age, he’d naturally become one of our pillars in defence. In fact, he is that since years already, but again: he’s about to enter his prime now. The best is yet to come from him. Van Dijk joined us at roughly his age.
The club will have better information on Leoni’s progress than us, but an ACL isn’t a career ender these days. Jaquet has a shoulder injury - nothing that would cast doubts on his ability to meet his potential.
Let’s say the club give Konate 250-300k a week (which is probably what he wants) for five years. Konate might not be first choice for three, maybe four, of those years. And once a player is on that kind of money, there are very few clubs that we can legitimately hope to move him on to.
You are continuing to give the current club administration way too much credit. They have fubarred way too many things in a very short space of time. And this feels like one of them.
You say that because you obviously don’t rate Konaté. You think that two young 20-years-old will easily dislodge him from a starting place.
Fair enough, we completely disagree on this. For me, he’s a world-class CB in the making, and VVDs natural successor in our defensive line-up. But I won’t convince you of that, so let’s leave it at that.
That is a very relative notion. Obviously, putting Gakpo on 250k a week wasn’t too much money to ask last summer. But for Ibou, it is?
17 year old Ngumoha is too young and inexperienced to be regularly relied upon, and playing him may get him injured. Giving him a pathway that he wasn’t ready for created a bad situation and is a mitigating factor for Slot’s abysmal management of this club.
20 year old Jeremy Jacquet coming off a 6 month shoulder injury and 19 year old Gio Leoni coming off an ACL injury are more than ready to replace Ibrahima Konate… but 12 months ago Konate was so untouchable that we still have people defending the sale of Quansah who was judged to be not capable of displacing him (before going on to have a good enough season to make the England squad).
What is “too much” money? Paying 135M for Isak wasn’t too much money, was it?
I understood (even though I didn’t quite agree) when we let Gini go over his demands. But Konate at 27 about to hit his prime when Vvd is only here one year more is a bad decision. Especially when we don’t have a recruit of equal or even near ability lined up.
Leoni and Jacquet absolutely do not count. They are kids and are coming off significant injuries.
Also remember, VVd’s ever-availability is a rarity, much like Salah’s. We’re most likely going to need 4 bona fide centre backs from now on. That doesn’t include Joe (not even sure if he will stay)
The fubar is letting it get to the last twelve months, and to the point where Konate feels he can dictate terms. He should have been got on a much more reasonable and sustainable contract 18 months ago. But obviously the nobody wanted to do that in the middle of Klopp’s last season.
It’s isn’t a fubar at this point to refuse to make him one of the highest earners in the squad.
The club need to get discipline over contracts, even if that means making big, unpopular decisions. As soon as layers get to two years, they should renew or be sold.
Its quite near sighted to conclude this is solely about money, when the club is declining around it for many other reasons. Those believing in that singular explanation are partly in denial. Money is just the outward ‘easy’ story which helps the pretence that this is nothing as well, but more than half the established and successful players of the club have left in the last 12 months. In any other context to fail to see that would be negligence.
We’re probably going to have to pay in excess of 60m and put someone on similar wages to what Konate is on currently. Hard to see in today’s market how extending someone for an extra couple of million a year in salary is worse than paying the crazy transfer fee of getting someone new unless you know they’re a substantial upgrade.
They don’t count until they show they can potentially displace him and that can only happen when they play for us. Unless you are suggesting that the money we paid gives them an automatic start.
I’m not saying they’re not the future (Please God no more major injuries) but look at their ages. They won’t be properly ready for the rigours of a title challenge for at least a couple of years. Experience is HUGE for centre backs, more important than in any other outfield position.
Also, he’s learned so much from being with VVD, as much as I pooh poohed his possession play it has improved markedly (ironically because teams force possession into him match after match).
He would have been the standard bearer for a top club. A French International world cup finalist. A premier league winner, CL finalist, multiple cup winner.
He is NOT VVD. VVD is a generational talent like Salah, they’re unicorns.
But he is the next level down. And who knows, he could have improved.
I’m suggesting that having spent 90m on the pair of them, the club view them as significantly more than a pair of kids they have taken a punt on.
Jaquet cost £60m. That alone is the kind of money that Liverpool would expect to see on the pitch.
It all comes down to money. Liverpool would have extended him had they been able to agree a deal that worked. But the last thing we need is a player on Van Dijk money bouncing around as third/fourth choice with three years left, and no prospect of shifting him because no-one will meet his wages.
We have let too many players go too soon. I know Luis Diaz went with a fee. He said himself, he never wanted to leave LFC, but the contract offer he was getting from our bosses, was not good enough. Now, he is flourishing at Bayern.
This is unacceptable in my view. We are a much weaker team now. I am not a happy oldie!
And it’s quite a stretch to add this one to the pile of grievances to have a pop at Slot over. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail etc.