We asked you for your burning questions on the goings on at Anfield, and Liverpool FC correspondent Paul Gorst has provided the answers
Arne Slot speaks with Ibrahima Konate during a training session. (Photo by PETER POWELL / AFP) (Photo by PETER POWELL/AFP via Getty Images)
Arne Slot speaks with Ibrahima Konate during a training session. (Photo by PETER POWELL / AFP) (Photo by PETER POWELL/AFP via Getty Images)
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It's been a difficult season so far for Liverpool as Premier League champions and the questions are mounting. And over on the ECHO's pages, they are stacking up just as much.
From Arne Slot's future, Ibrahima Konate's contract situation and what the plan is for the club's pre-season plans, you asked and we have answered. The ECHO's Liverpool FC correspondent Paul Gorst is here with our weekly mailbag to keep you to up date with all that is happening at Anfield.
It sounds more promising about Ibrahima Konate's contract. What do you think will happen? - Tony
It does indeed sound more promising on Ibrahima Konate's contract situation, I would agree. I was in the room with Arne Slot on Friday when he told us that the club remained locked in talks over a new deal and it sounded fairly encouraging.
There were reports before Christmas that Real Madrid had contacted Liverpool to tell them they wouldn't be pursuing Konate as a free agent but I wouldn't have thought that would have eased concerns behind the scenes as the defender approached the January 1 date that allowed him to speak to clubs outside of England.
The sticking point may be, and this is just speculation on my part, that Konate's wage demands are too high a jump from the terms he is currently on. Five years ago, the going rate for a first-team arrival with potential and room to improve was somewhere around the £120-£140,000 mark and it is fair to assume Konate came in on similar terms.
Back then, when he joined the club in the summer of 2021, he was a young and relatively unheralded defender with huge potential and his best years ahead of him. But, he is still on that same deal now five years later, although his status has changed significantly in football as a whole. Is the desired pay hike too costly for Liverpool given their current outlay elsewhere?
Now he's a fully-fledged France international who has won the Premier League, the FA Cup and two Carabao Cups at Anfield and he is still only 26. Liverpool will have to pay a fortune to replace him this summer if he walks away, and that's even factoring in Jeremy Jacquet's imminent arrival.
I'm hedging my bets at this point as we are nearly in March without a resolution but Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk only renewed in April, so there is hope yet.
What’s the club’s future plan for Alex and Hugo to fit into the same XI? - Ola
Arne Slot, for plenty of reasons, simply hasn't been able to field Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike in the same team as often as he would have liked. Liverpool had Isak as the "sure fire" option of the two when both were signed and this idea that Ekitike's progress has made the decision to purchase Isak a flawed one, in my view, nonsense.
Liverpool sold Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz last summer and, of course, tragically lost Diogo Jota, so the club needed elite-level quality in those forward positions. There is a belief that Ekitike could operate off the left, in time, but Isak's lack of a pre-season and then the injuries - the groin issue at Eintracht Frankfurt and the broken leg at Spurs - have limited the ability to play both in the same XI.
Even when they did start the same game - the 5-1 win at Frankfurt in October - Isak only lasted 45 minutes through injury. So there is a long-term plan for both but presently it is about getting over the line in that top-four/five race, however it comes. Isak will be a huge success at Liverpool, I have no doubt about that and Ekitike, while primarily viewed as a No.9 by those at the club, is still capable of playing in wider or more withdrawn roles, according to those at the AXA Training Centre.
I want to know why Rio Ngumoha is not having more game time in our matches whilst he have positive impact whenever he is subbed on - Maurukira Morebligious
Rio Ngumoha has just been an unfortunate victim of circumstance at Liverpool this season. In an ideal world, the best way to give him more minutes and opportunities is when the team are at in an advantageous game-state like Saturday evening, when he was introduced on 77 minutes with the score at 3-0, against Brighton in the FA Cup.
That allows a teenager winger of Ngumoha's precocious talents the opportunity to play his natural game safe in the knowledge that the result is pretty much secure and if he tries some things that don't necessarily come off then there will be no major impact on the scoreline. It provides freedom.
That, though, just hasn't happened as much as anyone would have liked this season. Liverpool have conceded stoppage goals on six occasions to change the result of games and eight points have been lost as a result. They have also won a handful of matches with late goals themselves, suggesting there has rarely been control this season.
Demanding an inexperienced youngster with zero Premier League starts under his belt to come in and change that is unfair. The last thing Slot wants is for the crowd to get on the back of a 17-year-old with a bright future because one or two things he tries don't work in a game where a result is imperative.
With Liverpool seemingly taking the FA Cup a bit more seriously than previous years now as well, Ngumoha might be forced to settle for more cameos off the bench. There is no rush on his development, though. He isn't legally able to buy himself a beer until late August!
What are the plans for pre-season? - Carl Munroe
Details from Liverpool are scarce at the moment as plans take shape and become finalised further down the line but it's believed the Reds will be heading back to the United States this summer.
A friendly with Championship side Wrexham is in the works as the Dragons continue to look to raise their profile on the other side of the Atlantic. Their owners - who are. of course, Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia writer and star Rob McElhenny - have been driving growth at some pace for the Welsh club in recent years.
And for them, there are not many clubs who will help to build their own brand further than Liverpool, who are one of the most well supported 'soccer' clubs in the USA.
Liverpool are thought to be lining up a friendly in New York in late July as part of their pre-season plans. With the World Cup in Canada, the United States and Mexico this summer, a return to North America is viewed as an ideal opportunity to grow even more and it will be the Reds' second trip in three summers, having gone to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Colombia in 2024.
All of that, as things stand, is yet to be made official but it is thought plans are progressing at pace.
Will Leoni be a dependable the 3rd centre-back next year? - Buckeye Doug
A lot will of course depend on how he recovers from that ACL injury he picked up in September against Southampton. Leoni has had limited time at senior level really, relatively speaking, having only made 17 appearances for Parma prior to his move to Anfield, which was confirmed in mid-August.
So at the moment, it's difficult to say, without seeing him at close quarters every day, how far away he is from a return and how good he actually is and can be. He looked very assured at the back against the Saints but they are, with respect, a Championship outfit.
Liverpool feel they have got in 'early' for Leoni as they anticipate a rise in the cost of quality centre-backs in the coming years, as evidenced, I guess, by the £60m they have just paid for Jeremy Jacquet.
The Italian teenager is considered one of the 'senior' options at the club, however, so he will be treated as such upon his return and there is a belief at Liverpool, and in football more generally these days, that ACL injuries are not the death knell to a career they perhaps once were two decades ago.
Two questions on the state of play regarding Arne Slot's Liverpool contract - Ola and Phuds
As Arne Slot neared the halfway point of his three-year deal which began on June 1, 2024. it looked for all the world that Liverpool would look to tie him down to renewed terms.
Liverpool had just completed their most ambitious and expensive transfer window of all time and were riding high as Premier League leaders. But a run of nine defeats in 12 between late-September and November left the club reeling and an unbeaten run which stretched from November 30 to January 24 did little to convince the project was massively back on track either.
It's unclear how far down the line any contract talks got at the time but they were surely placed on ice given the way this season took a turn in the late Autumn. Slot has rejected questions on his own terms when asked in press conferences, insisting his focus is on getting back to winning ways and I think all negotiations over the future will be on pause until the end of the season now.
A lot rests on how Slot and his squad finish the campaign in my eyes now, even if there was unity and alignment radiating from the recent 'Reds' Roundtable' episode with the head coach, sporting director Richard Hughes and CEO Billy Hogan.
That being said, the checks Liverpool did to make sure Slot was the right man to succeed Jurgen Klopp were exhaustive. The dossier of information gathered on the Dutchman was enormous and character references from a number of sources within the game were very detailed.
Julian Ward even undertook something of an espionage mission to Feyenoord's training ground to find out more first hand. It was a fact-finding assignment as the club worked to find the right man to follow on from Klopp's golden period.
So what that all means is those at the club, specifically Michael Edwards and Richard Edwards, would be reluctant to relieve the head coach of his duties unless it was crystal clear his time had run its course. There is no feeling within the club presently that has happened.
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