Ibrahima Konate has arguably been the worst of a poor bunch this season, and there have been a lot of contenders.
The centre-back has been woeful this campaign, in stark contrast to a lot of his Liverpool career.
While it isn’t crystal clear exactly where Real Madrid stand on a move for free for him in the summer, it wouldn’t be surprising if Los Blancos did not even want to entertain that.
Here is what happened to Ibrahima Konate and where does he go from here.
Ibrahima Konate: The mercurial centre-back
On Wednesday, Liverpool’s Ibou made a terrible blunder for PSV Eindhoven’s third goal as he tried to control the ball, ceased to, resulting in the goal that effectively ended the contest.
The 26-year-old also had a shocker after Liverpool conceded the first goal against Nottingham Forest.
For someone who is now a senior player, it is not good enough for him to look so lackadaisical and passive as a centre-back for Liverpool.
Konate has played all 12 of Liverpool’s league matches this season and has at times played quite well, before ceasing to look anything the top end centre-back he had previously.
This mercuriality is not good enough for a central defender. When you make one mistake there, it so often leads to a goal.
We have seen these types of centre-backs in the past. Dejan Lovren is one that comes to mind, his collapse against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley sticks in the memory.
Martin Skrtel had similar games in his latter days at Liverpool. Sebastian Coates too could have his bad days.
These were average players, none of them won league titles with Liverpool. Konate though, as such a brilliant player is fairly unique in having such a sharp drop off.
Fabinho comes to mind when thinking of a great player who fell off sharply due to age. But that isn’t Konate either.
His speed is still there, he remains 26. He should be in the peak of his powers. So why is he not playing as well as we know he can?
Form, or the future?
Konate’s current issues started last season. He had a number of poor displays, most memorably in Liverpool’s 2-2 ‘defeat’ to Everton at Goodison Park.
Konate did not deal with the danger before it found its way to James Tarkowski to slam home the ‘winner’. The mistakes of last season were largely forgotten during Liverpool's march to the title.
Ibou’s poor form has bled into this season, with too many glaring, costly errors including failing to mark Harry Maguire as he scored Manchester United’s first winner at Anfield in ten years.
These poor performances across both seasons have coincided with swirling rumours linking Konate to Real Madrid.
Arne Slot has not dropped Konate, hamstrung by and wary of the options afforded to him. Gomez is too readily injured, Leoni is out for the season, and anything else is a player out of position.
With no let-up in fixtures, his performances have snowballed and his mental fragility has only been exacerbated during this losing run.
All of Liverpool's players have visibly suffered mentally since Diogo Jota's death and this understandably likely feeds into their collective mental fragility. After all, people who suffer trauma can struggle with resilience.
It is too by no means solely Konate's fault that Liverpool have been a mess recently, but Arsenal aside, Konate has generally made Liverpool worse this season.
This period of poor performances over two seasons though is arguably too long to be described as form. He is mercurial, he can be really good one minute and giving a goal away the next. Liverpool can’t afford that.
That’s the bottom line. The true Konate is both really good and really bad. He will never be the next Virgil van Dijk that we hoped he would.
With Konate’s present performances it is now uncertain whether Liverpool would want to stump up the cash to renew him before his contract expires in the summer.
Liverpool could instead choose to invest in other defenders, giving the Reds a fresh start.
In American sports, teams are often described as ‘moving off’ a player. Letting them leave to rebuild a team, because they are not getting enough bang for their buck, or because they want to go in a different direction.
It is time Liverpool moved off Konate.