Virgil van Dijk has heaped praise on one ‘amazing’ Liverpool teammate who ‘can still be better’ than what he’s shown in the early weeks of the season.
The Dutchman’s centre-back partner opened the scoring in the 2-1 win at Wolves on Saturday but was also culpable of hesitation in the lead-up to Rayan Ait-Nouri’s equaliser at Molineux.
Speaking to the official LFC website, the Reds captain absolved the 25-year-old of blame over that goal and gave his firm backing to the Frenchman, who he believes has the scope to improve even further.
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Van Dijk said: “We need everyone to be at their best. Ibou is an amazing, fantastic player who can still be better. He is defensively solid and was a bit unlucky with the goal that we conceded but the qualities he has, he is outstanding.
“He is learning and he is growing, getting better and looking after himself much better, to be ready every three days – and also he has a young player behind him in Jarell [Quansah] who is also a good one, so they keep pushing each other.”
Since displacing Quansah at half-time in the win at Ipswich on the opening weekend of the season, Konate has largely been excellent for Liverpool.
As per WhoScored, the Frenchman has posted the second best passing accuracy of anyone to have started a Premier League match for the Reds this term (90.7%), while he’s also won the joint-most duels (22) and made the second-most clearances (21) among Arne Slot’s squad.
He obviously could’ve done a lot better in the lead-up to Ait-Nouri’s equaliser on Saturday, but he made up for it with a potentially goal-saving block to deny Carlos Forbs with just under 20 minutes of normal time remaining.
Konate is now at a stage of his career where he’s settled, with this being his fourth season at Anfield, and he’s already accrued plenty of high-level experience from 17 France caps and more than 200 senior club games, while only now coming into what are likely to be his peak footballing years.
Even if Van Dijk signs a contract extension soon, the 33-year-old probably won’t be at Liverpool for a great deal longer, and Slot may eventually be looking towards the Frenchman to be his leader at the heart of our defence.
Big Ibou hasn’t quite yet managed to become a truly integral presence in the Reds’ strongest XI in three full seasons on Merseyside, but the next few months could see that change for the better, based on his form in recent weeks.
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