Paul Gorst’s weekend Blood Red column assesses Liverpool’s contract wranglings and how the issues date back years
05:00, 14 Feb 2026
Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes(Image: LFC TV)
For a moment or two, Arne Slot might have felt a twang of deja vu as he answered questions in the second, embargoed part of his Friday press conference.
First, he was asked about Ibrahima Konate as he confirmed that talks do in fact remain ongoing over a new deal for the France international centre-back, who is now entering the final few months of his terms on Merseyside.
Next up was Curtis Jones, who Slot said remained part of his plans for next season when the midfielder would be inside the final 12 months of his own Anfield contract.
For the Liverpool head coach, it likely felt like last season’s jousting with the media, when updates were seemingly given on a weekly basis over Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Throw Andy Robertson into the mix alongside Konate and Jones, who admittedly has a year longer than his colleagues, and the sheer volume of contract issues surrounding Liverpool over the last couple of years paints a picture of a club who let the respective situations contracts drift for too long.
You have to go back to 2022 for the genesis of these problems, when Julian Ward was just a few months into the role having succeeded Michael Edwards, when he handed in his notice.
Ward worked until the end of that season and did a lot of the leg work that paved the way for Alexis Mac Allister to join, but as Jurgen Klopp‘s power base grew organically, so too did his list of responsibilities. Contracts, however, were not in his remit, understandably, and the appointment of Jorg Schmadtke as sporting director was not the same as when Edwards helped shape much of the strategy that underpinned the club for a number of years.
The enigmatic Schmadtke signed on a one-year deal with the German describing himself in media in his homeland as a ‘facilitator’ for deals Klopp wanted doing. The former goalkeeper even admitted to believing the club were overpaying for Dominik Szoboszlai in 2023 when his £60m release clause was triggered at RB Leipzig.
In many ways, it was a sporting director role in title only for Schmadtke and by the end of the January window in 2024, he had left the club, months before his contract officially expired. “He has made a valuable contribution, both in terms of the support he provided to Jurgen Klopp and the assistance and guidance given to our outstanding football operations department,” said FSG president Mike Gordon at the time. That much was true, he helped rebuild a decrepit midfield, which was what he was primarily employed to do.
In the void that was left while owners FSG deliberated over their reshaping of the club, post-Klopp, however, months were allowed to tick away on the contracts of those aforementioned stars and, while Slot and his squad were able to make light of having three of their most high-profile performers facing a year’s worth of intense debate, such uncertainty was not at all through design.
Full credit to current incumbent Richard Hughes for securing Salah and Van Dijk to new two-year deals, signed in April, and for banking £10m for Alexander-Arnold, who was only 30 days away from leaving as a free agent. But it feels now, with the benefit of hindsight admittedly, as though Liverpool are starting to feel the pinch after being unable to forward plan properly during that period between Ward’s departure and Hughes’s arrival.
Slot admits he would love Konate to stay on beyond his current terms and the club’s £60m deal for 20-year-old Jeremy Jacquet is another piece of the jigsaw when it comes to lowering the age of the squad and future-proofing it for the years ahead.
The Reds, though, need Premier League-ready players at the peak of their powers just as much as the stars of tomorrow and they are unlikely to find a better centre-back than Konate this summer, certainly not without paying a king’s ransom.
Talks have been ongoing for well over a year with the Frenchman’s representatives, at least indicating that Hughes – a little over 18 months into the role – has been proactive in his efforts to retain.
But as Konate, Robertson and to a lesser extent Jones creep toward a summer where their next moves could be anyone’s guess, the root cause of such unwanted prospects can probably be traced back further than anyone would care to admit.