Arne Slot has defended young star Jarell Quansah after the centre back made a mistake that led to a goal against Brighton on Wednesday – and the Englishman was substituted late on as Liverpool tried to see out the game.
Quansah played the majority of pre-season and started the first match of the league campaign at Ipswich, only to be hauled off at half-time after losing several duels to forward Liam Delap. He has not started another league game since.
Fellow defender Ibrahima Konate has made the centre back role his own next to captain Virgil van Dijk and Quansah, perhaps suffering from confidence issues, has barely had a sniff since apart from Carabao Cup games.
But Slot has defended his performance. ‘Jarell played a very good game, the only issue he has is that if it’s a moment that isn’t perfect it immediately leads to a goal,’ said the Dutch head coach ahead of Liverpool’s game with Brighton – again – on Saturday.
‘In my opinion he was unlucky. You can’t judge a player without those two moments as they were important towards the result, but he is getting better and better. He has shown in the past he can make these mistakes and it doesn’t lead to goals.
‘If you look at his overall performance I was really happy with it. These things can happen. I like the way he played, he was unlucky with the second goal as well. He is in competition with two centre-backs who have hardly made a mistake.’
The Reds will be without Federico Chiesa again for the visit of Fabian Hurzeler’s team and fans will need patience with the Italian new boy. He is unlikely to play this side of the international break and has been in and out of training trying to build the required fitness and intensity level.
Meanwhile, Slot said all three of Liverpool’s out-of-contract stars – Van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold – are in a good place.
‘For me the contracts issue only becomes a problem if the players don’t perform as good as they are at the moment,’ he added.
‘All three are in a good place. There are ongoing discussions.’
