Ibrahima Konate will leave Liverpool, the Premier League confirmed on its official website on Saturday, deepening a defensive crisis at Anfield that the club must resolve before the start of next season.T1 - Premier League
No fee or destination has been disclosed. The Premier League’s player-profile page for the twenty-five-year-old French centre-back listed his departure as part of a batch of club updates published on Saturday, with no further details on contract terms or the next club involved. Liverpool have not yet issued a statement.
Konate joined Liverpool from RB Leipzig in 2021 for a reported £36m and made 115 appearances across all competitions. His final season was disrupted by a recurring hamstring injury that limited him to 19 Premier League starts. He was under contract until the summer of 2028, meaning any departure likely involves either a negotiated exit or a release clause, though neither mechanism has been confirmed.
The departure compounds an already acute shortage of senior centre-backs at Anfield. Virgil van Dijk’s future remains unresolved with his contract set to expire in June, and Joe Gomez has struggled with availability across the past two seasons. Sepp van den Berg was sold to Brentford in 2024, and Jarell Quansah has been linked with a loan move to gain regular first-team minutes.
Liverpool’s recruitment team, led by sporting director Richard Hughes, is understood to have identified at least two centre-back targets, though no formal bids have been reported by Tier-1 sources. The club faces a narrow window to rebuild the heart of its defence before pre-season fixtures begin in July.
The announcement arrived alongside broader changes at the club, with the same Premier League update cycle confirming that Liverpool have parted company with head coach Arne Slot.T1 - Premier League The convergence of a managerial exit and a defensive exodus leaves Hughes and the ownership group with significant structural work to complete over the summer. Expect Liverpool to move quickly on at least one central defender, with the market expected to accelerate once the June international break concludes.
