What Ibrahima Konate was spotted doing moments before half-time substitution

Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate had a match to forget against Wolves at Anfield on Sunday.

Ibrahima Konate has been one of Liverpool's best players this season. That's no easy feat, either - just about everyone has been phenomenal as Arne Slot's Reds battle for the top trophies.

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But Konate has been particularly dominant at a time when Liverpool needed a partner for Virgil van Dijk. Joe Gomez has had his usual injury concerns, while Jarell Quansah has failed to match his performances from last season.

It left Konate to step up and help lead one of the best centre-back partnerships in Europe. The Frenchman has been wonderful, setting up talk that he's one of the best around right now.

Though, Sunday saw a rare lapse.

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Konate struggled quite badly with Wolves' counter-attacking, leading to a number of rash decisions. One of those saw him pick up an early yellow card for holding back his man after losing the ball high up the pitch.

A counter attack was on - and Konate felt the only way to stop it was by giving up a yellow card.

That made the rest of the half a challenging one. In fact, the defender was a little lucky to remain on the pitch after clattering into Matheus Cunha on the edge of Liverpool's box.

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It wasn't a dangerous challenge or even that reckless - it was just slightly late with the ball in the air. But Wolves' questions over a second yellow were valid and Konate was talking a tight rope to say the least.

Arne Slot's half-time sub

Slot saw that Konate was essentially one more foul away from a red and hooked him at half-time. Quansah was a willing replacement and with that, the second half was a little more secure.

In fact, the way Wolves pushed on in that second period means the half-time sub was absolutely necessary in hindsight. Slot made the right call.

So close was the 'second' yellow card call that Konate was actually spotted talking with Cunha as he went off at halftime.

That was presumably the topic of conversation. Cunha was down for a little bit post-challenge and it's easy to see that he was trying to increase the pressure on Konate.

Fortunately, it didn't quite work. Liverpool got away with it a bit and can now regroup ahead of the Aston Villa clash midweek.

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