Arne Slot has played down any issues with Jarell Quansah after the Liverpool defender was the unfortunate casualty of a below-par first-half team performance against Ipswich Town. The coach has clarified remarks he made in the immediate aftermath of the game .
Asked about his half-time change after the match, Slot was quick to confirm it had been a tactical decision. That prompted Gary Neville to dub it a "brutal" substitution .
Slot had emphasized that Liverpool had been losing too many duels in the first period, seemingly identifying Quansah as a weak point in that regard. He was replaced at the break by Ibrahima Konate .
READ MORE: Liverpool transfer news LIVE: Ayman deal completed, Branthwaite odds drop, Alexander-Arnold contract
READ MORE: Arne Slot opens up on 'difficult' Liverpool transfer decisions as fans start to lose patience
"Slot was quite tough on Quansah," Neville said on his podcast . "Subbing someone at half time is big and I don't think it's done lightly by managers.
"It was the way in which after the game he was quite blunt about how he answered it. There was no holding back. I think there's an element there of him being quite clinical and brutal and saying he's reacting to the game and what was happening."
But Slot has suggested that his words may have been misconstrued. Speaking ahead of the Brentford game , he sought to make himself clear:
"I don't think there was that much in it, although maybe the language was a problem," Slot explained. "What I said was he did not lose every duel, but he lost one or two important ones, and one of them was just before half-time.
“The only threat from Ipswich was [Liam] Delap and he won one or two important duels. I was trying to get that strength out of their team by bringing in Ibou."
It still won't have felt great for Quansah, but it sounds as though Slot's change was more about the team than him as an individual. And in fairness, the change worked, with Liverpool's second-half performance vastly improved.
The young center-back could be seen looking less than impressed on the bench, even as Diogo Jota put Liverpool in front. But Slot has insisted that Quansah's reaction was only natural, and that he even asked to do extra training in response:
“[He reacted] in a way you would expect a player to react," Slot said.
“I spoke to him after the game and the day after and at the end of that conversation he asked if he could train on Sunday, he should have done recovery but he wanted to train. Unfortunately it was Tuesday he picked up a bit of an injury so he couldn’t train on Wednesday and we will see if he train today.”
You'd imagine this poorly-timed knock might keep Quansah out of contention for Brentford, preventing him from bouncing straight back. But there's no reason to think he won't still be a big part of Slot's plans as the Premier League season unfolds.
Liverpool.com says: It sounds like the situation has been managed pretty well behind the scenes. You might question the wisdom of letting Quansah train when he was meant to be doing recovery, especially given he has now picked up an injury, but it showed the right attitude from him.
Hopefully, he gets the chance to play again sooner rather than later, with the issue not allowed to fester and become bigger than it needs to be. It was just a tactical tweak from Slot, and everyone should be able to move on from it.
Most Popular
Comments / 0