Ibrahima Konate has joined the Liverpool squad and feels at home at his new club. The 22-year-old defender came over from RB Leipzig for 40 million euros and is currently preparing for the new season in Austria with the Reds. During the training camp, Konaté says in an interview on Liverpool’s official website that he feels “some pressure” from taking over the number 5 shirt from Georginio Wijnaldum who left for Paris Saint-Germain.
“It’s an important jersey number for the club,” said Konaté, when asked for his jersey number. “A great player wore this number before. It doesn’t bring a lot of pressure, but a little. I feel the pressure to help the club move forward. I hope to achieve great things with this jersey number.” The Frenchman knows that football in England will be different from what he was used to. “Everyone knows that the Premier League is a high-intensity competition with a lot of strong players. It’s going to be tough, but I’m looking forward to the challenge. I’m big and strong; I’m not afraid with the ball at my feet. I score easier with my feet than with my head, that’s who I am. I have that quality, but I have to keep working hard to become a top defender.”
Pepijn Lijnders is in any case positive about Konaté. In an article on the club website, the Dutch assistant to Jürgen Klopp writes that the summer acquisition is adapting well to the new playing style. “ibou is doing very well. He is used to a different way of playing football, but there are similarities. He adapts very well. He is very calm on the ball. He knows how to attack, when to make meters with the ball, when to pass with the outside of the shoe, when to use the inside, when we have to use a different style of play…”, Lijnders sums up. has a good insight into the attacking area. He’s also strong defensively and we needed that because we’re high – our centre-backs and backs need to be able to nip counters in the bud. If you’re as high as we are, and players break through, then of course we still have Alisson Becker, but we prefer to solve the problem with our legs. And Ibou certainly has legs.”
“When we train, every player is under maximum pressure. You can never take it easy. He notices that now. That causes a little more fatigue from training. He has to adapt to a new club, a new style of play, and he has to make good decisions under constant pressure in training. That shows you what kind of player you have brought in. He has everything to become the type of center back we are looking for. He now has to learn and listen to Millie (James Milner, ed.), big virgin (Virgil van Dijk), and so on.” Liverpool faced major defensive problems this season and therefore needed defensive reinforcements. Van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip were seriously injured and Klopp had to regularly put midfielders in the defense. An extra center defender was already recruited with Ozan Kabak from Schalke 04.