Liverpool had to make some interesting tweaks to their backline during Wednesday’s draw with Newcastle.
The Reds are a little short on defenders at the moment owing to problems for Ibrahima Konate, Kostas Tsimikas and Conor Bradley.
As a result, Arne Slot has had to be a little creative when putting together his teams.
In midweek against Newcastle, this meant sticking Jarell Quansah at right-back alongside Joe Gomez at right centre-back.
The change did not totally work, with Gomez suffering a rough night and Quansah looking exactly what he is: a player unused to playing at right-back.
Nevertheless, the Liverpool academy graduate did not do badly, and Slot was keen to make a comparison with £50m Arsenal defender Ben White.
Jarell Quansah of Liverpool in action during the Premier League match between Newcastle United FC and Liverpool FC at St James' Park on December 04...
Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images
Jarell Quansah given Ben White comparison
With Bradley out and Trent Alexander-Arnold only fit enough for the bench, many would have expected Slot to go with Quansah at centre-back and Gomez at right-back.
However, after trialling Jarell at full-back for 15 minutes against Man City on Sunday, it was not a huge surprise to see him line up there at Newcastle.
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And although Quansah had his hands full with Anthony Gordon, Slot argued that the 21-year-old actually had a good game at St James’ Park.
“First of all I think Jarell played quite a good game,” the Liverpool head coach told reporters on Friday.
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“From what’s been told to me not everyone else is agreeing with me. But if you look back at the game you see that in his one-v-ones he had not many problems. The few times Anthony Gordon was a threat he was not involved in those moments.
“But if Conor is available he is a similar style to Trent, he tries to attack the goal and wants to make underlaps and overlaps, but Jarell is a different type of player,” Slot added.
“He’s more the way Ben White fills that position, behind the ball, playing the ball through the lines. That makes a difference to if Conor or Trent play there.”
Jarell Quansah will learn from right-back experience
Slot is absolutely right with this take. Quansah was actually more than fine defensively on Wednesday.
He did struggle once or twice when trying to play infield and caused Liverpool a bit of trouble in doing so, but generally for a first go he did well.
It was also encouraging that Quansah got the full 90 minutes in the tank.
It would have been easy for Slot to take him off at half-time after seeing that his gamble was not really working on the whole. But the boss stuck with his decision and we think in the end it didn’t turn out too badly.
Either way, it is no bad thing for Quansah to add another string to his bow while playing up against a tricky customer like Gordon. Alexander-Arnold will likely return on Saturday, but we think we may see this once or twice again before Bradley is back.
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