Liverpool may be forced to use James Milner at right-back against Manchester City tomorrow.
That’s according to The Athletic, who report that Ibrahima Konate is now a fitness doubt for Sunday afternoon’s clash. As a result, Joe Gomez would ‘likely’ have to shift across to centre-back, with Milner coming in on the right.
Konate reportedly missed Friday’s training session with an unspecified ‘muscle problem.’ Further assessment is said to have taken place today.
The Frenchman’s issue is reported as being ‘minor.’ But it’s claimed that Liverpool won’t take a risk on Konate if he doesn’t prove himself to be ready.
Liverpool stretching themselves too thin
This isn’t great news for Liverpool. Just as their injury issues appeared to be easing, they’ve flared up once more.
Ordinarily, Konate missing shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The Reds are well-stocked at centre-back with Virgil Van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip able to fill in.
But with Matip already confirmed to be out and Trent Alexander-Arnold joining him in the treatment room, Liverpool are spread too thin.
The shame in all of this really is that it should have given Calvin Ramsay a chance to show his quality. Ramsay was brought in this summer as the understudy to Trent, but has had a number of fitness issues himself.
Having seemingly got himself in a position to challenge for minutes, it now looks as though the 19-year-old is injured once more.
It would perhaps have been a stetch to ask him to start this one, anyway. But if he’d got a good pre-season under his belt and maybe played once or twice for Liverpool by now, then maybe that wouldn’t have been the case.
Instead, it looks likely that Milner will be asked to go again against the Champions. The veteran, who Jurgen Klopp has previously called ‘outstanding via liverpoolfc.com, actually started this fixture at right-back last season.
On that day, he was extremely lucky not to be sent off as Phil Foden ran rings around him. Foden is once again in terrific form at the moment. That really doesn’t bode well for Liverpool’s chances tomorrow. Let’s hope for some better news on Ibou tomorrow.
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