11 March 2024 , 07:51
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Ibrahima Konate is set to play for Liverpool in the FA Cup against Manchester United on Sunday after missing the draw with Manchester City.
Jurgen Klopp was forced to field youngster Jarell Quansah alongside Virgil van Dijk against City on Sunday after Konate joined Joel Matip on the sidelines. The French centre-back went off injured in Liverpool ’s 5-1 win over Sparta Prague in the Europa League on Thursday and was missing from the Reds’ squad at Anfield.
His injury added to the lengthy list of absentees for Klopp and he will miss the second leg of the Europa League last-16 tie against Sparta Prague on Thursday. However, Klopp is confident Konate will be available once again for the FA Cup quarter-final against United this weekend.
“Ibou has a chance for United – a good chance,” he said. “Our injury situation is still awful. There are many players not available, it is crazy. If we were to play only the players who were not available today, that would have been as good a team as [this] one.”
As well as Konate, Liverpool are currently without Matip, Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Ryan Gravenberch, Stefan Bajcetic, Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota. Meanwhile, Mohamed Salah was only deemed fit enough for the substitutes’ bench against City and replaced Dominik Szoboszlai in the 61st minute.
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Liverpool have navigated a punishing period of fixtures with a stretched squad and remain in contention in all competitions. Sunday’s draw against City left them level on points with Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table with 10 games left to play.
Asked if Liverpool could go the distance in the title race, Klopp replied: “Yeah, but we need the players back. Today – and I love all the stories we created with the kids, wonderful, couldn’t be happier – but we fight for the biggest prize in football. Ibou Konate is out, we start all three other centre-halves. One goes down, we play the next two games in six days with two centre-halves, who play all the time.
Ibrahima Konate went off injured against Sparta Prague (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)HAVE YOUR SAY! Will Liverpool's injuries prove decisive in the Premier League title race? Comment below.
“All these things are really tricky. But we come through it. We played really good football in that, lucky in moments, winning late, fighting hard. We don’t take that for granted. But today the performance was like, one or two players back. We can change like we changed. Oh yeah, that is cool. I’m really happy about that today.
“What it means for the next game, I have no idea. I don’t even know a little bit about the situation, if anybody feels more than tired. I didn’t ask yet. It is just good information for me, that we can play like that. I’m really happy with that. Let’s see what we can do from here.”
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