Liverpool have struck gold on Slot’s “monster”

It’s March. Liverpool are flying high, but Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and captain Virgil van Dijk are all into the final few months of their contracts.

It’s a wearisome conversation at this point, has been for several months, but the fact remains Anfield’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, faces an unenviable task in renewing these deals.

Arne Slot has worked wonders in pushing Liverpool, 13 points clear, toward the Premier League title and perhaps even more, but the sustained brilliance of such players has sparked a tectonic shift at the forefront of the English game.

Securing their futures is the first port of call, but it’s not the only pressing concern for Hughes and co. Indeed, a host of first-team stars are either entering the later phase of their own deals or attracting transfer attention.

Harvey Elliott, match-winner against Paris Saint-Germain this week, is among them.

Harvey Elliott’s Liverpool future

Next season, Elliott will step into the penultimate year of his Liverpool contract. Still only 21, the creative midfielder has featured 137 times for the men’s team, notching 29 goal contributions.

But variables such as an early injury in 2024/25 and Liverpool’s gripping title race have left him searching for his first Premier League start of the season, having made ten showings off the bench

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You’d think he’s got the gifts to play a lasting role in Slot’s squad, ranking among the top 1% of midfielders across Europe over the past year for goals, assists and shot-creating actions per 90, as per FBref.

Such potency was perfectly illustrated through his snatch-and-grab goal at the Parc des Princes this week, making it three successive Champions League goals.

However, these efforts are also fanning the flames of his future. In January, interest abounded regarding a potential move away, with Elliott linked with teams such as Brighton & Hove Albion and Borussia Dortmund, as per Sky Sports.

Elliott wants to remain at Liverpool for an age but he will need to start seeing some more match action, else another talented team will canvass their project his way and convince him to jump ship and become a major player.

Elliott, unfortunately, isn’t the only one whose Liverpool future is somewhat nebulous. In fact, a more prominent Reds star is the centre of uncertainty on that front.

Liverpool struck gold on coveted star

It’s great to watch everyone at Liverpool do so well and all that, but such prominence does come with some unwanted attention.

While Elliott has doubled down on his commitment and adoration for the club, there’s another superstar believed to be keeping his finger off the trigger as some rather daunting suitors loom large.

In October, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano aimed to ease fans’ concerns with an update on Liverpool’s contract situation. Jarell Quansah had penned a long-term deal on Merseyside after his impressive breakout last season, and Konate was slated to follow.

But noise regarding a renewal has petered out over the past few months, with a different kind of din rising on the transfer front.

At Anfield, a chorus will boom from the stands whenever Konate is on the ball, does anything of note. “Ibouuu,” the crowd cry in unison. It’s a marker of his deep-rooted connection with the club, its inhabitants.

Konate has been among the most gifted defenders in Europe for several years. Before Klopp pushed ahead and activated the RB Leipzig star’s £36m release clause in 2021, Ralf Rangnick, then Leipzig sporting director, declared: “He’s so good that he could play for Real Madrid or Barcelona one day.“

Unfortunately, Rangnick’s praise might ring a little too true. Though Liverpool are pushing to tie their French centre-back down to a bumper new deal, Los Blancos are also sniffing around for a defender, with the Daily Mail confirming the LaLiga champions’ interest. Paris Saint-Germain are also admirers.

While the £70k-per-week Konate has a new deal on the table, Real’s underhand tactics will no doubt give the ace food for thought, perhaps a defining reason behind his hesitance to scribble the nib across the paper.

Konate, after all, is heading into the final year of his contract and Florentino Perez would love nothing more than to claim yet another world-class talent on a free transfer.

Liverpool must ensure this does not happen, at the very least convincing the 6 foot 5 star to extend his terms so to provide FSG with some recompense, should they lose their most profitable centre-back.

After all, Konate’s reputation and performances have seen his market value shoot up. Journalist Josh Williams has even hailed him as a “monster at covering ground and in one vs one situations.”

According to Football Transfers‘ player-appraisal system, Konate currently boasts a price tag of roughly £45m. The site is rather stringent with its valuations, and in truth, were Liverpool to tie the Les Bleus talent down to a new contract, such a figure could balloon.

The same could be said for Elliott, to be fair, with the 21-year-old recorded to have a value of about £40m, which seems a fair reflection of the playmaker’s current standing on the European scale.

Liverpool have their work cut out over the coming months. Everything’s going rather well at the moment, but there are more than a few potential quandaries on the horizon, and securing the futures of superstars like Konate is imperative when solidifying Liverpool’s long-term future as a juggernaut of the European game.