Liverpool lining up future move to replace Ibrahima Konate with club legend’s son | OneFootball

Liverpool are working on a move that could see Ibrahima Konate replaced by a club legend's son in the future.

At this moment in time, the Frenchman is absolutely the first choice centre-back to play alongside Virgil van Dijk. Yet, his future is up in the air.

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Konate has one year left on his contract. Liverpool want to keep him. But whether they can is moot. Real Madrid are huge admirers and the fact that Konate has not extended his deal despite being in talks for several months now is worrying.

Nobody, absolutely nobody wants to see a repeat of the Trent Alexander-Arnold situation. Konate is also in his prime and Liverpool's preference should be to extend his stay and keep him for as long as possible.

Only in the future should Liverpool be thinking about replacing the Frenchman. Maybe four or five years down the line at which point there may be a youngster in the club's academy ready to take his place and follow in the footsteps of his father.

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These days, the word 'legend' gets bandied about a lot. But make no mistakes about it Djibril Cisse is a Liverpool legend. He plays for the club's legend team and he played a role in securing Liverpool the Champions League title and winning the FA Cup.

He's scored goals in final and definitely left his mark on Anfield. All those things means that he qualifies as a legend of the club.

Now his son is following in his footsteps. Prince Kobe Cisse made his debut for Liverpool's U18 side last season and has continued his development with the club's academy.

He's with the U18s again and he's playing in a new role.

Cisse, just like his father, initially started out as a forward. He then switched to being a winger and then last season Liverpool transitioned him into a full-back.

This summer though academy coaches pushed Cisse even further back. They have been playing him as a centre-back in pre-season and he debuted in the new role for the U18s against Stoke City.

Liverpool won the game 5-1, and it was a very successful outing for Cisse.

Afterwards, the club's U18 head coach Simon Wiles, sung his praises to Liverpool's official website:

"Prior to me coming in, I was watching the games and the staff were working with him and thought that they'd unleashed a new opportunity for him," Wiles said.

"You've got to take your hat off to Prince himself in that situation. Because sometimes if you're not getting the game time or you might not be affecting it as much as you can do, staff as a group, Academy manager, Tosh [assistant manager Anthony Ryan] are looking at, 'Right, what are his capabilities, what can he bring to the team, is there another opportunity where we can put him in a different position?'

"I think he's only played there five or six times and the competition that they faced with the two centre-forwards that they were up against, I think they competed really well. He's got the physical capabilities, which is really good, and he's good on the ball. In this moment, you've really got to take your hat off to him in terms of how he's conducted himself and he's really open-minded to this change of position. I think if you're getting performances and going up against opposition like he did, it's only going to help him keep progressing."

This isn't new. Academy coaches often switch player roles at this level. Alexander-Arnold was famously transitioned from a midfielder and winger to a full-back.

Cisse seems to be going through a similar phase in his career and that bodes well for him. Clearly the club's coaches rate him highly and see potential in him.

Perhaps in the future this is a move that could see the youngster replace Konate in the first team. It would be fitting considering his father was also a French international.

Cisse is certainly a player to keep an eye on.