Ibrahima Konate was slammed by a couple of Liverpool journalists for a moment of horrendous defending against Galatasaray.
One moment of particularly poor defending in the second half of the Champions League tie inspired some critique from Ian Doyle and Lewis Steele.
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The Frenchman was left praying for a miracle after a comedy of errors ended with Victor Osimhen putting the ball past Giorgi Mamardashvili (imperious in the first 45) to double the scoreline.
Victor Osimhen thought he scored following a mistake at the back by Liverpool, but it's disallowed ❌
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/CWGohzmSUg
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 10, 2026
Ibrahima Konate gets away with costly error vs Galatasaray
It’s quite frankly a miracle that Liverpool don’t (at the time of writing) find themselves down by more than a goal in Istanbul.
Konate certainly did his utmost to invite a lead-doubling effort from Osimhen after his scuffed pass back to Mamardashvili set up the advancing Noa Lang.
The Galatasaray star gladly took possession before cutting the ball back into the heart of the box. Unfortunately for his teammate, Liverpool’s fortuitous defender got in the way of the ball… fortunately for Victor Osimhen, he failed to clear the danger and instead left the ball loose for the former Napoli striker to strike.
An offside call later ruled out the effort, leaving the visitors with just the one-goal deficit to claw down.
Catch Ian Doyle and Lewis Steele’s reactions on X (formerly Twitter) below:
Konate a very lucky boy there. Made about 14 mistakes in one passage of play but the offside was clear earlier in the move
— Ian Doyle (@IanDoyleSport) March 10, 2026
Galatasaray have one chalked off for 2-0 after a calamitous bit of defending from Ibrahima Konate. It is offside but, wow, that was bad.
— Lewis Steele (@LewisSteele_) March 10, 2026
What do the stats say about Konate’s performance in the Champions League?
It’s moments like these that you realise stats only go so far.
A score of 7.1/10 (at the time of writing) just simply hasn’t been justified by the eye test for Ibrahima Konate (and hardly the first time this season at that).
| Ibrahima Konate’s stats vs Galatasaray |
| 8 defensive contributions |
| 1 last man tackle |
| 1 block |
| 5 clearances |
| 1 recovery |
| 2/3 ground duels won |
| 3/3 aerial duels won |
* Ibou Konate’s stats in the Champions League clash (Fotmob)
To be fair to the former RB Leipzig star, he’s been pretty proficient in the air, as you’d normally expect of him and Dutch centre-back partner Virgil van Dijk.
But it’s been far from a composed display at the back from the reported Real Madrid target and the rest of Liverpool’s defensive line.
Konate came close to Liverpool redemption
Whilst Ibrahima Konate can’t be specifically held to account for Mario Lemina’s opener in the first half of action, his defending in Turkey has hardly inspired confidence in the Liverpool backline.
That said, the Frenchman did come awfully close to hitting back at his critics with a second-half strike from a set-piece.
However, the 26-year-old centre-back was adjudged to have handled the ball with his upper arm on its way to nestling into the back of the Galatasaray net.
Easy to pinpoint ibou as the scapegoat but the team has been boring since the slump last year.
For me Slot is a mistake to coach Liverpool. I have been saying repeatedly that the guy is clueless. FSG had been fooled by his winning the Premier league .His reasons for PL winning was to the fact he hardly changed Klop’s philosophy last except encouraging ball possession, though it was a snail’s pace.As long as Slot is coaching Liverpool, we’ll always be a laughing stock because doesn’t know how to take the team forward
I am sure if he was at another club,he would have been sacked long time ago. Slot has created history by becoming the first coach to lose to a minow club in the.CL. If he was sacked in January & be replaced by Steven G,we would be in a respectable position in the league .I don’t think we will qualify for CL,maybe we can qualify for Conference league if we have not been piped by Everton, Brentford or Sunderland, because we will not win at Dickson stadium, old Trafford and Villa Park & at Brighton.
FSG see things their way. They think football as a science. People who grew up playing and watching games analyze Lfc differently. Lfc have no pace in their game. I repeat myself, Isak, Ekitike n Wirtz are physically weak vs Ohsimhen & Co.
Well where to start? There are lots of problems. Lets start with the coach. He started with Wirtz/that was a mistake/as proven by his performance Wirtz as a result of a month off was not fit/so should have been on the bench to start, with Rio starting. Robbo played well against Wolves and should have started with Kerkez on the bench. Again he started with Mo/who quite frankly was awfully bad/at least two clear runs at goal put through by good balls and could not capatalise/his pace is gone! Now Gravenberch played a better game/but twice when broke free/instead of sending it out to the left with Kerkez in acres of space and a clear run to the line – held the ball too long then sent it to Mo/who was hopeless. The danger man was always Osinhem/where was VVD when that corner came in – I am not sure but he was definitely not on Osinhem/first misatke/Viktor wins the header and sends it to a Galatasaray player unmarked in the box with five LFC players around him ball watching. LFC players were generally very reticent to go into tackles with purpose//other than Szlobo who always puts in – consequently they lost most of their one on one duels/also lost most of the second balls – so that in itself is a recipe for disaster. I must say that the ref seemed very lenient on Galatasaray/Yilmaz especially who was pretty ugly in a lot of tackles but got away with the worst of them/thus bossed us around with his all in boots and all performance/when we did something similar we got carded. I probably would have given Jones a go at around the 75 minute mark/because by then our midfield were stuffed. Overall LFC were poor again today, Slot selections again were very/very questionable. YNWA!
I have backed Slot all the way but he doesn’t learn from the same mistake he keeps making the last match he play Rio who did more in 10 minutes than Salah has done in months so what does he do last night, Salah on again to stand and watch Rio who was the player of the last match no where to be seen your time is done to to pack up bring in Alonso.
Konate looks a completely different player than he was under klopp. So many mistakes, every game he looks a liability. I wouldn’t give him a new contract, he wouldn’t get into a championship team on the form this season. Replace him in the summer.