French media give verdicts on Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konate after his ‘catastrophic’ performance vs Belgium

Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate earned another start for France as they secured a 2-1 win against Belgium in the UEFA Nations League.

♏Paris Saint-Germain’s Randal Kolo Muani emerged as the star of the show as his brace either side of half-time sandwiched between Lois Openda’s goal spearheaded Didier Deschamps’ side to a crucial win.

Konate started at the back alongside Arsenal’sꦛ William Saliba and the pair endured a torrid outing despite emerging on the winning side.

And the French media weren’t kind with their assessment of the Liverpoolꦯ defender after one of his worst performances of the season.

Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate flatters to deceive for France

🌄Konate’s passing was awry and he was heavily involved in the passage of play which led to France conceding a penalty in the first half.

🐓He made a bad pass that was easily intercepted and played the Belgian attackers onside to put his side in a spot of bother.

Moments later, Openda was clean through on goal, but Saliba🃏 took him out with a cynical foul to concede a penalty, although it could be argued that the whole episode could have been avoided if Konate had held his line well.

ཧYouri Tielemans skied the resulting penalty, but Konate’s role in the passage of play didn’t go unnoticed…

ꦏ rated him 3.5/10, saying: “Since Leandro Trossard took Tintin’s cosplay to the extreme, he respected the comic book theme by dressing up as Barbapapa. Well, we assume so, because we didn’t recognize him.

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🎶 claimed Konate was better than his central defensive partner but gave him a rating of 4/10, pinpointing his self-destructive tendencies in the first half.

💛“The Liverpool player was a little better than his partner in the middle, but there was nothing to get excited about.

๊“He also had a catastrophic start. He lost the ball which led to Leandro Trossard’s big situation (18th). On the corner that followed, he completely missed his header and created the danger all by himself.

🎉“But he was sometimes able to recover, notably when he came back hard on Loïs Openda (27th). And he too was absent on Aurélien Tchouaméni’s red card.

𝐆And finally, rated him 5/10, suggesting that he got better as the game went on.

🐎“His match got off to a bad start. Caught by a call at the near post from Openda (13th), he seemed curiously destabilized as on this ball lost in the middle (18th) which could have cost dearly.

“But he recovered by taking the upper hand on Openda (27th) and during a second period where his physical superiority ended up serving him. In short…💎 We feared the worst but Konaté pulled himself together.”

Konate’s stats vs Belgium

🍌Konate played the full game for France and even wore the captain’s armband in the second half after Aurelien Tchouameni’s sending-off.

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ﷺThe Liverpool man didn’t win a single ground duel and lost each of the two aerial duels he contested as Belgium got the better of him in the opening exchanges of the game.

🌠He blocked two shots and made one interception as he finished the game with a rating of 6.8, making him the worst-rated French player on the pitch after Saliba (6.3) and Tchouameni (6.6).

𒈔It wasn’t his best game for France, but the 25-year-old will take solace from the fact that his poor display didn’t cost his team on the night.

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