Jurgen Klopp has played down fears of an injury to Ibrahima Konate, confirming he was simply rested for Liverpool's 2-1 win over West Ham United.
The Reds centre-back was left out of the squad entirely for the visit to the London Stadium as Virgil van Dijk started alongside Joel Matip, who headed home the second-half winner in the capital after Cody Gakpo had cancelled out Lucas Paqueta's opener.
The win moves the Reds up to sixth in the Premier League and their unbeaten run now stands at five games, dating back to the loss at Manchester City at the start of the month.
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With Tottenham Hotspur to visit Anfield on Sunday, Klopp stated Konate was not suffering with an injury and was instead left out due to the workload in recent weeks that has seen him start nine games since the start of March.
"Ibou could have played," Klopp said. "He is not injured. But he had in the last few weeks he's always had to rest like two days, one day then half a session, stuff like this.
"So now I had to make sure that he could recover properly so he doesn't get injured and so that is why we left him completely at home, so that is pretty much it."
Klopp revealed that he was delighted with how his entire team defended against the Hammers and was full of praise for the character shown by his players to respond to Paqueta's 12th-minute opener.
Klopp added: "What pleased me the most? Our defending, definitely. We defend completely differently. In general, it's the readiness to defend. I saw again, the biggest chance West Ham had in the first half when Virg (Van Dijk) cleared it at the far post, it looked like a goal.
"We didn't win the ball in a three-v-one situation on the sidelines but I loved it anyway. I loved it. Yes we should win the ball there but I loved that we tried and it was a genius moment (from West Ham). It was unlucky for us that they got through but I loved the situation anyway and then we were lucky or Virg did particularly well.
"On top of that it was the defending and as I said when you have stability in the game and not each piece of possession your opponent has ends up in a shot or a cross or a dangerous situation in your box then you can go step by step, confident during the game. That is what I saw today.
"That is by the far the best reaction we've had to a setback this season. Usually when we're 1-0 down this season it looks like that is it. Today I couldn't see a difference. It was all good, body-language wise.
"Yes, we need to score then but as I said, I would have liked the game as well had we drawn 1-1. If we lost the game, I think that would have been super unfair but if we had drawn I liked the game anyway, not the result but we won it, so that makes it the perfect night for us."
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