Empire of the Kop
·02 de dezembro de 2024
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Yahoo sportsEmpire of the Kop
·02 de dezembro de 2024
The feel-good factor at Liverpool right now is quite strong, aside from injury concerns and ongoing contract sagas regarding crucial players.
With the Reds nine points clear at the top of the Premier League and boasting a 100% record in the Champions League, life is close to perfect for their supporters at the moment.
However, one sight at Anfield on Sunday – when Arne Slot’s side outclassed Manchester City – will have increased fans’ fears over one member of the squad who’s currently sidelined.
Nearly an hour after the final whistle, Daily Mail journalist Lewis Steele posted a video to X which shows Ibrahima Konate on crutches.
The Liverpool defender picked up a suspected knee injury at the end of the win over Real Madrid last week after a challenge from Endrick, and the Reds’ head coach has said that the Frenchman will be ‘out for a few weeks’ (The Mirror).
(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Konate has forged an imperious centre-back partnership with Virgil van Dijk this season, with LFC conceding only nine goals in 18 Premier League and Champions League matches so far this term, so it comes as a most unwelcome back for that formidable duo to be forcibly broken up.
The sight of the 25-year-old on crutches at Anfield yesterday also suggests that he could be out for some time, a crying shame when he’d been in arguably the best form of his career thus far, and not what Liverpool needed when facing into a hectic fixture schedule over the winter.
Thankfully, Slot has two capable alternatives to call upon in Joe Gomez and Jarell Quansah, with the former starting in the win over Man City and looking solid in his first Premier League start of the campaign.
There have been well-informed suggestions that Konate would be ruled out for as much as 10 weeks with his current injury setback, which means we won’t see him back in action until February at the earliest.
It seems evident from the weekend that we shouldn’t expect him to return soon, but hopefully those worst-case scenario projections won’t come to pass.
You can view the footage of Konate on crutches below, via @LewisSteele_ on X:
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