The Reds centre-back picked up a small injury while he was warming up ahead of a potential substitute appearance against Toulouse, which led to him being eventually dropped from the current France squad for the international break.
The centre-back will now miss the two games against Gibraltar and Greece, with Deschamps commenting on the Liverpool’s situation in a press conference on Monday, relayed by RMC Sport. He said: “He felt something in his hamstring. He had tests, but it’s not serious. He needs a bit of time to not take any risks. It’s an area where he already has an injury. It wasn’t in his interest or mine (to call him up). In the best of cases, he could have been training only Friday or Saturday.”
The manager also replied to Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp, who recently had a slight dig at Deschamps for over-using Konaté during the last international break. “I try and manage them like any manager. When they have weeks with three games, they can manage them a bit more. Us, we have a gathering, two games.” It was also made clear that calling up Disasi instead of the Liverpool defender was to ensure that he wouldn’t have any issues for the back end of the current calendar year, when Premier League clubs tend to have a busier schedule than other leagues.
On Sunday night, the French national team announced that Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konaté, originally called up by Didier Deschamps, would be replaced by Axel Disasi.
Asked about the German’s comments, Deschamps replied rather calmly: “It probably happened in the past, and it will happen again at other moments because the situation and interests vary between club managers and national team managers.
