Ibrahima Konate damage forces withdrawal from France squad

Ibrahima Konate has returned to Liverpool after it was determined that he wouldn’t function in France’s World Cup qualifier towards Iceland on Monday.

The defender arrived on the nationwide group’s base earlier this week, nursing a quad damage he sustained in Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea.

The 26-year-old initially educated by himself within the Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines area in a bid to evaluate how severe the damage he sustained at Stamford Bridge was.

Fears across the severity of Konate’s damage had been eased on Friday evening when he was named within the France squad for the 3-0 win over Azerbaijan.

However the French FA have now confirmed he is not going to journey for Monday’s qualifier towards Iceland after talks with Didier Deschamps and the nationwide group physician.

After Konate was changed by Curtis Jones within the 56th minute of the defeat at Stamford Bridge final weekend, Arne Slot stated: “I don’t know if it’s a large damage, however what I do know is he limped just a little bit and after I requested him he stated he felt his quad just a little bit.

“Then, for me, all alarm bells go off as a result of in one other dash you by no means know if that’s going to go good.

“It was additionally already a substitution I had in thoughts, possibly for a couple of minutes or just a little bit later, as a result of the precise centre-back had a variety of ball possession and we wanted to create from that place. Everyone knows Ryan [Gravenberch] is kind of good in that.

“It is likely to be OK that he went off early sufficient nevertheless it was clear I needed to take him off as a result of he was limping.”

Marseille defender Benjamin Pavard has been referred to as as much as the France squad to interchange Konate.

Liverpool face Man United at Anfield subsequent weekend, with Joe Gomez the one different match specialist centre-back obtainable to companion Virgil van Dijk.

Giovanni Leoni has been dominated out for the rest of the season after present process ACL surgical procedure, with Slot contemplating Ryan Gravenberch, Andy Robertson and Wataru Endo amongst his emergency choices.