Gary Neville has slammed one Liverpool player, claiming he must have “annoyed” manager Arne Slot during the Premier League champions’ 2-1 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday evening. The Reds suffered a third consecutive loss for the first time since Jurgen Klopp left the club last summer, following defeats to Crystal Palace and Galatasaray in the seven days prior.
The Blues took an early lead through a Moises Caicedo rocket inside 15 minutes. While an equaliser from Cody Gakpo briefly restored Liverpool’s influence just past the hour mark, Enzo Maresca’s side found a winner in injury time, with Brazilian wonderkid Estevao arriving at the back post to poke in a last-gasp goal.
As it stands, things just aren’t clicking for Liverpool. Despite breaking the bank to spend over £400 million this summer, the turnover of 15 players has instead created a string of teething issues. Yet, it’s a long-time servant of the club who has drawn the sharpest criticism from Neville – proving that even seasoned veterans aren’t immune to bearing the brunt of a rough patch.
Neville Claimed Ibrahima Konate Must Have “Annoyed” Arne Slot
During commentary, Neville highlighted Ibrahima Konate’s sluggishness on the ball as a reason to believe the Liverpool manager must have grown annoyed with the Frenchman. Often seeming to walk around as if he didn’t care to get involved in the action, Konate frustrated the former Manchester United defender.
“If you watch Konate on the ball at the start of the second half, he was just walking with it,’ Neville said while on commentary duty for Sky Sports, as per the Mirror. He then continued:
“It was frustrating and annoying me to be honest. I think he was annoying Arne Slot as well, because he’s decided to get someone on who is better on the ball at the back but can’t defend as well. He’s going all in.”
The decision to shift Ryan Gravenberch into defence almost immediately paid off, with Liverpool benefiting from his range of passing out from the back. But it failed to prove enough for them to get back to winning ways as they conceded in injury time for the second time in as many Premier League games – some will say it is a taste of their own medicine after having won in the 83rd minute or later in all of their first five games.
While the punditry team suggested it was a tactical substitution, however, those claims were cast into doubt after supporters noticed the 26-year-old heading straight for the tunnel as he hobbled off. “He felt his quad a bit,” the manager confirmed after full-time. “Then alarm bells go off with me. If the game had gone on like this, I would have made the change a bit later but did not want to take the risk.”
Regardless of the extent of the injury, Konate has been playing as though his mind has been elsewhere since the start of the campaign. With rumoured interest from Real Madrid over the summer, many believe he’s in a different mindset to the one that made him so imperious last season, as the Reds have conceded eleven more goals in the league than they did at this stage of last season.
Meanwhile, the missed opportunity to sign Marc Guehi on deadline day is already coming back to haunt the Reds, especially after the ACL injury to Giovanni Leoni compounded their defensive fragility.