Ibrahima Konate is enjoying his most consistently strong start to a season yet at Liverpool, with Arne Slot just as impressed by his work away from the pitch.
Konate has been one of Liverpool’s best players so far this campaign, and on Saturday night is set to extend his personal record to 10 consecutive starts in the Premier League.
That the Frenchman has been unable to make more than 10 starts in the league in his previous three seasons with the Reds highlights his struggle with injuries.
But so far that has not proved a problem under Slot, whose backroom staff were renowned for improving and maintaining the fitness record of players at Feyenoord.
Now 25 and a candidate for captaincy with the France national team, Konate is maturing into a world-class centre-back, with his head coach crediting his dedication to improvement off the pitch.
“I don’t know how [Konate’s form] was [last season],” he told the Liverpool Echo‘s Paul Gorst.
“The only thing I know is that from the moment I first started working with Ibou, his first game wasn’t the best against Manchester United in pre-season on the USA tour.
“But I was impressed by how much he wants to learn.
“So every time we are on the pitch, or having individual clips or team meetings he is so focused on trying to understand what we want from him.
“All the guys are quite positive in that but, in my opinion, he stands out in trying to learn the things that we are trying to hand over to it.
“That is one of the reasons why his performances are very stable and the other thing is he is playing next to a player who we would all love to play alongside.
“But for Virgil it is the same with Ibou, I think the two of them are complementary. They bring out the best in each other so that is the reason why the two of them do so well.”
Despite the attempted narrative in north London that Arsenal boast the Premier League‘s best centre-back partnership in William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, there is a clear front-runner this season in Konate and Virgil van Dijk.
Slot was asked for his view on the debate but distanced himself from any comparison, instead praising the depth of Liverpool’s defensive ranks.
“The best partnership in the league right now? That is difficult to judge because I only saw our games, all of them, and sometimes I see a few games of the opponent if we face them,” he explained.
“I don’t look at it in as much detail as I look at our own defenders.
“The only thing I see we have at this moment is four very good centre-backs where two of them are playing most of the games.
“But the moment we need Joe Gomez he has done outstanding and for me Jarell Quansah has been unlucky in moments but if you take away these moments he is doing really well as well.”
