Liverpool were held to a 1-1 draw by Chelsea during their Premier League clash on Saturday afternoon.
The Anfield outfit needed to beat the Blues in order to cement their place in the Premier League’s Champions League places, but hat unfortunately didn’t happen.
Nobody expected the Reds to be scrapping with their rivals to finish in the top five, especially after the huge amount of money they spent in the summer.
However, if anything, their performances levels have dropped massively with the Reds’ fanbase failing to even recognise their own team.
Indeed, a lot of this is down to the poor outings that Liverpool’s current crop of players have put on display but, in their game against Chelsea, there was one player in particular who left Ally McCoist rather unimpressed.
Ally McCoist slams Ibrahima Konate for his role in Enzo Fernandez’s goal
Even though Liverpool may have been the ones on top during the first 15 minutes of the game, from that point on, Chelsea were the ones in control.
They managed to capitalise on any mistake that Liverpool were making with the Anfield outfit’s midfield completely falling apart, despite the earlier goal put away by Ryan Gravenberch.
However, even though the Blues could have been two or three goals up, they only managed to get one of their many first-half shots into the back of the net after a rather large defensive mishap.
And, although none of Liverpool’s players did particularly well, it was Ibrahima Konate who was singled out by McCoist.
“I’ve got no idea how that’s gone in, none whatsoever! That is incredible,” he said while live on TNT Sports.
“Ibrahima Konate was slightly deeper than the rest of the Liverpool defence.
“One thing you’ve got to say is that is really poor defensively.”
Liverpool must shore up their back-line in the summer transfer window
Even though Konate is likely to extend his Liverpool stay, it feels like the Frenchman has been miles off the pace this term.
Of course, the fact that hardly any of his teammates are doing well won’t have helped matters much, but, he should be doing a lot better himself, especially if he wants to become the Reds’ next Virgil van Dijk.
The Dutchman’s contract is set to expire in June 2027 and, at the moment, the Reds don’t have a suitable replacement to come in and fill the void that the towering Dutchman will leave behind.
So, even though Richard Hughes and Arne Slot may feel like they’re fine for centre-backs this summer, in the long-term, it’s clear that they’re not.
Jeremy Jacquet could obviously end up coming in and surprising everyone but, until Liverpool’s fans have seen him play, that can’t be guaranteed.
Several centre-backs have been linked with an Anfield switch this summer and, if Slot wants to get his team back to their best, it feels like he needs to invest into at least one or two of them to enable that to happen.
Otherwise, they’ll be left behind and could end up worse off than they currently find themselves.