The fact that Liverpool has not yet decided whether or not to replace Fabinho with a new midfielder in the summer market may be due to the fact that Manu Koné is getting closer to returning from his injury.
A high-profile transfer decision was made by Liverpool last month, and it involved Jurgen Klopp approving the departure of one of his regular starters on the Merseyside roster. Fabinho, who had been a key member of the Anfield spine since the summer of 2018, was granted permission to leave the club and will now play for Al Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.
The South American was expected to start the first game of the new Premier League season, which was to be played against Chelsea. However, it appears that Jurgen Klopp will go without a single holding midfielder for the time being, as captain Jordan Henderson has also moved to the Middle East. Fans of the Reds appear to be in agreement that the decision to trade Fabinho was the best one, but they do not understand why a successor has not been found as of yet.
The Scouse midfielder is attack-minded, expressive, and likes to drift into the final third, but Curtis Jones appears to be poised to start as Klopp’s holding presence in the Premier League opener against the Blues in less than two weeks. This is a major risk for Liverpool to explore considering the Scouse midfielder’s preference to play toward the final third.
When he was at the top of his game, Fabinho was like having a fire extinguisher in the middle of a playground. Pep Lijnders famously labeled him as a ‘lighthouse’ who would offer the calm among the tempest on the game. Klopp gave him the moniker ‘Dyson’ because of his innate ability to hoover up loose balls within his area of responsibility.
Fabinho is a player who has a natural bent toward the defensive side of the ball, and he is very good at predicting when things could possibly go wrong. “I think I can speak for all the defenders to say that you made us feel safe,” said center-back Joe Gomez in an official farewell video recorded within the club and released on YouTube. The footage was uploaded to YouTube. In the same video, left-back Kostas Tsimikas can be heard saying, “It felt like you had a magnet in your legs.”
Since a few weeks ago, Liverpool has been aware of the necessity to find Fabinho’s successor, but the club has not been able to appear to make any progress in the transfer market. Klopp appears to be hesitating in relation to a successor, despite the fact that he has made two unsuccessful bids for Southampton’s Roméo Lavia, who is still a teenager. Why is this the case?
It’s possible that a player who goes by the name Manu Koné knows the answer. At the beginning of this summer, the young prodigy, who is 22 years old, was speculated to be on the verge of making a big move to Merseyside. Reports coming out of Germany indicated that a transfer was very much on the agenda. According to Bild, Liverpool reached out to Koné’s representation at one point, at which time the player was estimated to be worth approximately $44 million (£35 million/€40 million).
Up to the time that the Frenchman competed for his national team in the Under-21 European Championships, which were held by Romania and Georgia, there appeared to be a growing amount of interest in his services. The injury that Koné sustained during the competition was fairly serious, and he has been sidelined due to it ever since. Jones and Harvey Elliott of England were the champions of the tournament.
The talented player from Borussia Monchengladbach, on the other hand, has resumed his training during the previous few days. After first being diagnosed with a six-week setback, he is making a slow but steady recovery to his previous level of fitness. As Koné continues his road to recovery, Liverpool may begin contract talks with the Bundesliga team that he now plays for.
Despite the fact that in many aspects he is different from Fabinho, he more closely fits the profile of a destructive type. Based on his performances in Germany over the course of the past year, he has shown the ability to not only play when in possession of the ball but also to reclaim possession of the ball for his teammates, which paints him as an unpredictable dribbler at times.
Even though the start of the Premier League is only a few days away, Liverpool appears content to take its time making moves in the transfer market if it turns out that Klopp’s top aim is the player in question. In general, Koné ought to be an option that is pursued because he has the potential to provide the Reds with an important saving grace in the event that Fabinho proves to be difficult to replace.