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.
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