Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has set objectives for Ibrahima Konate ahead of the centre-back’s debut in the coming week.
There has been much excitement surrounding Konate following his £36million move from RB Leipzig this summer.
The 22-year-old, partnered by Dayot Upamecano, was excellent for Leipzig last season, and his form saw him attract interest from Liverpool and others.
It was the Reds who got the deal done, moving quickly to trigger Konate’s release clause as they look to improve on last season’s third-place finish.
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With pre-season only recently getting going, Liverpool fans have had to wait to see Konate in action, but it has now been confirmed that the young defender will feature on Tuesday night when the Reds take on Wacker Innsbruck and Stuttgart in two mini games behind closed doors.
And ahead of those games, Klopp detailed what he is looking for from Konate in an interview with the club website.
“Tuesday. He’s had a good rest, had a normal pre-season so far, so yeah, he can play on Tuesday,” he said.
“For Ibou it is important that he gets minutes quickly, that’s what pre-season is for.
“All the people from outside will say there are similarities between Leipzig and us and that is true, but anyway there are differences as well and the similarities are important but the differences are more important because you see that in training.
“There are some little habits where he is doing different to what we usually do, so we work on that but that’s now not that easy because that’s only six days now.
“So, all fine, completely normal. The first few days are there to realise what is the boy doing when he is not thinking.
“So, natural stuff. And then from there we start and that’s why he has to play and that’s what will happen.
“Then we will see how quickly we can get all this information together for him and then everything is fine.
“For a defender it’s not as difficult as it would be for other players but it’s still a job to do, and that is what we are doing.”
Liverpool fans won’t actually be able to see Konate’s performance with the games being behind closed doors, but footage from the match is likely to emerge afterwards, giving Reds fans a taster of what they can look forward to this season.