Liverpool: Klopp must unleash Ibrahima Konate against Wolves | OneFootball

Liverpool are back in Premier League action this afternoon with an away clash against Wolves at Molineux in their latest push for the Premier League title.

After seeing off their Merseyside rivals in midweek with a 4-1 victory over Everton, Jurgen Klopp’s side are in third place in the league table with 31 points, one behind Manchester City and two behind Chelsea heading into this weekend’s fixtures.

On the chalkboard

In terms of which players Klopp could choose to be in his starting XI to take on Bruno Lage’s side, one player that didn’t play against Everton that should be in the mix this afternoon is defender Ibrahima Konate, who Klopp has previously said has “massive potential.”

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Given how the Everton game was only on Wednesday, perhaps this could be an area where Klopp could look to rotate his players and kill two birds with one stone by resting Matip, who played in midweek, and giving Konate some minutes under his belt.

Standing at 6ft 4in tall, Konate has kept three clean sheets in the four league games he’s played in so far this season, showing that he is more than capable of playing at a high level in the top flight.

One of those clean sheets came during Liverpool’s 5-0 thrashing of Manchester United at Old Trafford where Konate managed to keep Cristiano Ronaldo, who recently hit the 800 career goals mark, quiet for the day, showing that the Frenchman can battle it out against dangerous attacking opponents.

This performance against the Red Devils led to Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders calling Konate a “beast.”

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Overall, Konate has managed to rack up an average of 4.8 clearances per game, two interceptions per game and 1.5 tackles per game, as well as winning 69% of duels, which could make him a terrifying opponent for Wolves on this occasion.

Looking ahead to the Wolves match, this could be a great test for the £70k-a-week earning Konate to play against some of Wolves’ attacking players such as Raul Jimenez, Adama Traore and Hwang Hee-chan as the Old Gold will presumably be on the attack given how they’ve only managed to pick up two 0-0 draws in their two previous games.