Arne Slot has confirmed that Ibrahima Konate picked up a quad injury during Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The French centre-back was forced off just 10 minutes into the second half, with Slot revealing that the substitution was made to prevent the problem from worsening.
Konate was visibly frustrated as he shook his head while heading down the tunnel.
Liverpool’s misery was compounded by a stoppage-time winner from Chelsea substitute Willian Estevao, handing the Reds a third consecutive defeat in all competitions.
Slot explained in his post-match press conference: “I don’t know if it’s a big injury, but I do know that he limped.
“And I asked him, and he said: ‘I feel my quad a little bit’.
“But for me all alarm bells go off because in another sprint then you never know if that is going to go good, so it was already a substitution I had in mind for maybe a little bit later, because the right centre-back has a lot of ball possession, and we all know that Ryan (Gravenberch) is good in there.
“So it might be okay and he went off early enough, but it was clear that I had to take him off because he was limping.”
On the loss, Liverpool’s third in a row, Slot said: “It was similar to the (Crystal) Palace game, although the playing styles of both teams were completely different.
“But what wasn’t similar to the Palace game was in the first half I think we played, not our best football, but still very good.
“We had three big chances. they only had one and they scored it. That was completely different to the Palace game as they had many chances in the first half.
“The second half performance, like in Palace, I liked. We created more than enough chances to score more than one goal, last week and today.
“When we did there was a period of the game where I thought we were going to win it.
“We came very close with good chances and moments where we had four vs three in our favour. In the last 10 mins it was end to end.
“Both teams could have won it, and we didn’t and Chelsea did.”
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