Liverpool desperately missed Ibrahima Konaté against Fulham as he could have troubled Aleksandar Mitrovic. The Serbian had a great game.
Fulham had a gameplan against Liverpool and it worked to near perfection. Their press in a 4-4-2 shape prevented the Reds from ever really establishing control on the game, while they didn’t have too much trouble finding a route to goal.
For a newly-promoted team against one of the world’s best, it was a fantastic performance. Liverpool, though, will look back at a lot of things they could have done better.
One such failure was how Liverpool handled Aleksandar Mitrovic. The Serbian scored twice in the game, the second from a penalty he won himself, but that doesn’t entirely explain his dominance at Craven Cottage.
Fulham turned to their striker for an aerial threat, constantly looking to bypass Liverpool’s press. They did that very well, too – Mitrovic won 11 headers in the game at a 79% success rate.
In contrast, Liverpool won 13 headers as a team. It’s the kind of stat that shows how badly they missed Ibrahima Konaté.
Aleksandar Mitrovic batters Liverpool
Mitrovic had a plan in this one that, to be fair, most physical strikers use – avoid Virgil van Dijk as often as he can. The Dutchman faced three defensive headers in this one and won all of them, which is typical of him. Van Dijk is probably the best defender on the planet in the air (and on the deck, honestly).
Joel Matip, in contrast, faced Mitrovic four times and lost every single header. For as good as Matip is, he just isn’t a physical imposing centre-back. That’s a role Liverpool can use Konaté for.
The Frenchman missed this game with an injury but we initially had him in our predicted lineup for the game. His athleticism and physicality were ideally suited to push Fulham higher up the pitch – and reduce Mitrovic’s threat.
And that’s how far Konaté has come on over the last year. He’s now a player Liverpool can truly miss in certain games and Saturday’s was one of them.
Give it another year and we imagine he’ll be completely cemented into this XI. What he brings is just too important in certain games.
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