Konaté: Liverpool Will Be “Super Motivated” For Next Season

It’s not hard to see that the 2022-23 campaign has been difficult for everyone involved with Liverpool football club. The players haven’t performed as well as everyone, themselves included, expects, and the fight and desire we’ve seen in the past, even when they aren’t at their best, has largely vanished this season. The poor results and lack of fight has clearly taken a toll on them and manager Jürgen Klopp.

As the season winds down and it looks increasingly likely Liverpool will fall short of top four and the Champions League football that comes with it, people are already pivoting to asking what next season will look like. There are reasonable concerns that the struggles and seeming lack of motivation will carry over into the next season. However, center-back Ibrahima Konaté doesn’t think motivation will be an issue after a disappointing campaign.

“It will be just the opposite. It will be almost an even bigger motivation - super motivated,” Konaté said.

“Let’s say we are unfortunate not to quite make it into the top four and get in the Champions League (for next season), that still leaves us with two massive things to go for - the league and the Europa League which we might be taking part in.

“It is a big incentive to go on and do something big so why not go for that league title in a season like that? We’ve still got the same mentality and desire that Liverpool has had for the last five years. But teams do evolve, don’t they?”

Mentioning teams evolving unsurprisingly segued into questions about potential summer reinforcements from the transfer market, but the Frenchman wasn’t interested in getting into incoming and outgoing personnel. Instead, he stressed the importance of making sure whoever is wearing Liverpool Red is focused on being better on the pitch.

“You’re asking the wrong person when it comes to finding new recruits. Our responsibility is to perform on the field. But over the last five years, many players have come and gone - but the whole point behind it is to make us stronger. As players, we can only concentrate on what we do on the field.”