Back in the summer of 2018, Liverpool were famously on the brink of completing a £53m deal to sign Nabil Fekir from Lyon. As the story goes, the Frenchman was even pictured in Liverpool training gear having completed his media duties ahead of the official unveiling.
Almost everything was done and dusted, right up until the point whereby Liverpool pulled the plug at the last minute. Several different theories have since been put forward as to why exactly the whole thing collapsed, but the predominant reason – and perhaps the most credible of the lot – was that Liverpool had identified an issue with Fekir’s knee following the medical examination, and had reason to believe that the cruciate ligament injury which he suffered in 2015 would potentially cause problems further down the line.
As such, Liverpool walked away and Fekir ended up staying at Lyon for the 2018/19 campaign before eventually joining Real Betis the following summer, where he remains now.
It’s a transfer saga worth bearing in mind with reference to yesterday’s report from The Athletic that Liverpool are closing in on the signing of RB Leipzig centre-back Ibrahima Konate for this summer, with the Frenchman’s contract containing a release clause worth in the region of €40 million.
While there has justifiably been plenty of excitement about the prospect of Liverpool securing one of Europe’s most talented young defenders, considerable concern has also been raised about Konate’s injury record – particularly in light of Liverpool’s troubles in that regard this season, specifically at centre-back.
On the face of it, those worries are understandable given Konate has missed 45 games for Leipzig since the start of the 2019/20 campaign, totalling just 1661 minutes of action in that time. This season, he has only completed 90 minutes on three occasions in the Bundesliga, and he has yet to start a single game this calendar year thus far. Last season, meanwhile, he completed 90 minutes on only six occasions in the entire league campaign. The numbers hardly paint an encouraging picture.
However, when digging slightly deeper, Konate’s injury record isn’t quite as bad as it might seem at first glance. He has only had one major injury – a torn muscle fibre in the early months of the 2019/20 season – which ruled him out for five months and required surgery last summer to prevent it becoming a longer-standing problem. That then kept him out for the first few games of this season, and he has suffered no further recurrence of the same injury since.
The ankle injury he sustained in the middle of December was completely unrelated and ended up keeping him out of action for a month-and-a-half – a very typical, common injury which most footballers suffer at some point during their career, and often multiple times. It happens. It’s part of the sport.
It’s also notable that in 2018/19, Konate played 3666 minutes for Leipzig in his first season as a regular starter, and in 2017/18 his fitness record was also impeccable. So really, when you boil it down, he has suffered one bad injury and one relatively minor one so far in his career.
That isn’t to say it’s not a concern whatsoever, but it’s also not a great deal of evidence upon which to definitively label Konate ‘injury prone’ at such an early stage in his career. As the Fekir episode shows, Liverpool don’t commit to these kinds of deals without factoring in availability and durability, leaving no stone unturned to make sure their investment is a sensible one with the long-term view at the forefront of their thinking.
Virgil van Dijk, it’s worth noting, missed 24 games with separate ankle and thigh injuries in the 12 months before Liverpool signed him, and was then virtually an ever present for the following two-and-a-half seasons until the incident involving Jordan Pickford in the Merseyside derby last October. Liverpool would have taken his previous injuries into account when opting to splash £75m on his signature, and arrived at the calculated decision that it was worth it for a player of Van Dijk’s supreme ability, but also because they had confidence those injuries wouldn’t flare up again moving forward.
If Liverpool do end up completing the deal for Konate this summer as expected, it’ll only be after a thorough assessment of every possible risk factor involved (bearing in mind Liverpool have an excellent working relationship with the Red Bull clubs, and will have access to all the information they need before making a final call).
The strength of their interest at this point would seem to suggest they think he’s worth it.
