Ryan Gravenberch will turn to Ibrahima Konate for the inside track on how to stop Kylian Mbappé as Real Madrid arrive at Anfield tonight, writes Luca Crane at Anfield.
Mbappé has been in eye catching form this season, netting 18 goals across La Liga and the Champions League already.
However, the Reds ran out 2-0 victors over Carlo Ancelotti’s men last November, with Mbappé having a penalty saved when Los Blancos were trailing 1-0.
This was the former PSG man’s only moment of note that night, with Conor Bradley keeping the Frenchman quiet that evening, producing a show stopping tackle on Mbappé on his first Champions League start.
This time Gravenberch will also look to Konaté, who is an international teammate of the European Golden Shoe winner.
He said: “I think Ibou [Konaté] knows him very well. So, I have to speak with Ibou about this, maybe, but we know he’s a top top player with really good quality.
“He can play in behind, he can come to the ball, he’s a good finisher. So, it will not be easy for us, but we will try to stop him and do everything.”
Liverpool academy graduate Trent Alexander-Arnold will return to Anfield on tonight to face his boyhood side, just five months after joining Madrid in controversial circumstances.
The right-back won two Premier League titles with Liverpool as well as the 2019 Champions League, alongside a catalogue of team and personal honours since his debut in 2016.
Gravenberch and Alexander-Arnold won one of these league titles together under Arne Slot as well as the 2024 Carabao Cup in Jürgen Klopp’s final season.
While some fans are unhappy with how Alexander-Arnold left Liverpool, apparently running his contract down before joining Madrid for £10m last May, the relationship between the pair remains cordial, with the Dutchman saying: “When I see him, he’s obviously a friend of mine, so I will give him a hug, of course.”
Slot’s arrival on Merseyside has coincided with Gravenberch’s rise to prominence. As one of the Premier League’s best deep-lying midfielders, the 23-year-old Dutchman won the Premier League Young Player of the Season award.
Gravenberch wasn’t a complete novice in the number six position when he was moved to the base of midfield, having played there a handful of times for Ajax in his final season in the Eredivisie.
He said: “When he [Slot] came here, he gave me the chance to become a starting 11 player. He gave me a lot of confidence and he gave me the opportunity to show myself again to the world.
“It was not easy, but in that role, I played before already a little bit, so I knew a little bit what to expect. When the coach came, I had conversations with him about what to expect from me as well from now on.”
The only part of Gravenberch’s game that suffered last season was his goalscoring. This season, however, he has rediscovered his goalscoring touch, already netting three times compared to none at all in 2024/25.
The Dutch international scored Liverpool’s second in their 2-0 victory over Aston Villa at the weekend. He jokingly attributed this finishing streak to his dad, saying: “I think I listen to my dad more this season. He always says to me, ‘You have to shoot more, you have to shoot more, shoot more.’
“And, this season, you see what happens, also in the game on Saturday against Villa, I shoot, and it gets deflected, so… I have to shoot more.”
