Chris Sutton says £35m Liverpool player looked miles off it vs Crystal Palace

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Liverpool were beaten 2-1 by Crystal Palace on Saturday.

The Reds were dominated by Oliver Glasner’s men, with several members of Liverpool’s first-team squad failing to live up to expectations.

Arne Slot chose to line his team up somewhat differently against the Eagles, with Florian Wirtz being used on the left wing.

In the end, it didn’t work out how the Dutchman would’ve wanted with Liverpool being lucky that they weren’t five or six goals down in the first 45 minutes.

Although none of Liverpool’s players performed all that well, Ibrahima Konate had a particularly terrible time on Saturday.

Ibrahima Konate was dominated by Jean-Philippe Mateta on Saturday

Konate has been well off the pace ever since the 2025-26 season kicked off.

The centre-back’s future has been under constant scrutiny due to him entering the final year of his current deal at Anfield.

Real Madrid have been interested in the defender for as long as many can remember, with their interest likely unsettling the former RB Leipzig man.

And, while commentating on the game for BBC Radio Five Live, Chris Sutton tore into Konate after the performance he put in.

“It’s unbelievable, isn’t it,” he said.

“I think this season, they’ve [Liverpool] looked lax defensively. I’ve seen Konate numerous times, slack as anything, [he] got there in front of Mateta, but Mateta just pinches the ball off him.

“[He then] comes around him, one-v-one with Alisson, I think he could go around Alisson, he doesn’t, he opens his body up to go into the far corner, Alisson reads it another big, big save.”

Ibrahima Konate must be dropped by Arne Slot as soon as possible

Even though Liverpool may have paid £35million for Konate, over the last few weeks, he’s been the Reds’ worst player.

However, since Giovanni Leoni is now ruled out for around a year and Joe Gomez is also half the player he used to be, the Frenchman is the best option that Arne Slot has.

At the moment, it feels like the Anfield outfit would be lucky if Real Madrid chose to take him off their hands for nothing at the end of the season.

Of course, players can go through bad runs of form, but the fact that Konate has only played well in around two games this season shows how poor he’s actually been.

Saturday’s game against Palace has also made it abundantly clear why Slot wanted to sign Marc Guehi in the January transfer window.

And, even though a move for the Englishman in January feels unlikely, if Konate continues playing like this, it feels like Slot may have to change his tune.