Arne Slot not sure if it’s a “big injury” but was worried about defender limping
Liverpool are facing an injury blow after Ibrahima Konate was forced off with a quad problem during Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The France international was withdrawn early in the second half against Chelsea, making him the second Liverpool defender within the past two weeks to go off injured. Giovanni Leoni also suffered an injury during the League Cup third round match against Southampton.
“I don’t know if it’s a big injury but I know he limped a little bit,” head coach Arne Slot said of Konate. “He said he felt his quad. For me, alarm bells go on because you never know if with another sprint how that’s going to go.
“It might be OK that he went off early enough but it was clear I had to take him off because he was limping.”
Slot said he was already considering taking the defender off because he has played so many minutes, although he also revealed there was tactical thinking behind it.
“It was clear I had to take Konate off,” said Slot. “He played three games in a week with a four and a half-hour flight each way [to Istanbul] in between.
“The right centre-back [Konate’s role] had a lot of ball possession. We needed to create from that position and we all know that Ryan [Gravenberch] is quite good there.
“When Ryan started to play in that position we were able to get our attackers into much more promising situations. We had to do better in the build-up and we did that in the second half.”
