RB Leipzig centre-back Ibrahima Konate is one of Liverpool's five options as they look to sign a defender this summer.
The club has been coy on the matter officially, confirming that they are looking at the Leipzig defender, but it's understood Konate is alongside Ozan Kabak on the shortlist of summer reinforcements.
Konate reportedly has a release clause of roughly £34million, whilst there was an option to buy included in Kabak’s loan deal in the region of £18million. This means that the club could potentially land both players for a relatively reasonable fee of just £52million in the summer.
Although that would most likely be a large chunk of Liverpool’s transfer kitty, it’d be worth it given the current quality of both defenders who are still someway of their prime.
Despite his age, 21, Konate has already etched himself a reputation as one of the better central defenders in the Bundesliga thanks to his dominance in duels and composure in possession.
Meanwhile, Kabak has been virtually an ever-present in Liverpool’s defensive line since arriving, performing to a level that has kept fellow deadline recruit Ben Davies stuck on the bench and allowed Jurgen Klopp to finally push Fabinho back into midfield.
On top of the above, there’s one area that both players have really excelled in across the previous 12 months when compared to their peers, and it’s a crucial area of your game if you’re a Liverpool defender.
As we see above, both Konate and Kabak rank amongst the best in their age group in terms of aerial duels won across the previous 12 months. Kabak ranks 15th of the 98 centre backs on the list with a success rate of 66.46% whilst Konate is way up in second with a success rate of 75.86%.
For comparison, Virgil van Dijk had an aerial success rate of 74.2% last season.
Konate has played the fourth-fewest number of minutes which does work in his favour when being compared to players who have played three or four times that number in the same period.
Yet aerial dominance is one of his key traits, therefore you wouldn’t expect to see a huge drop off from this success rate, even with more minutes on the field.
Liverpool of course play a notoriously high line, therefore beyond having the speed to cover the space in behind, you also need to be strong in the air to overcome attackers when opponents play the ball long.
Konate and Kabak more than tick this box, which will be just one of the reasons why they’re prime targets for permanent moves to Anfield this summer.
