Jurgen Klopp has described managing Jarell Quansah as “a pure joy,” with the Liverpool youngster on standby for a possible start in Sunday’s huge clash with Man City.
The 21-year-old has emerged as a surprise package for the Reds this season, making a breakthrough that few could have predicted given his only previous senior experience came on loan to Bristol Rovers in League One last term.
Quansah has managed 22 appearances in all competitions thus far, and will surely add to that in the biggest game of all this weekend should the results of a scan on Ibrahima Konate show a muscle issue.
That has come as a bit of shock even to Klopp, who was happy to use the Warrington-born defender as a fifth-choice centre-half this campaign, but did not expect him to be so influential.
He said: “Massive, massive development. Massive. He just stepped up. He came back and it wasn’t that everybody in the club was saying, ‘yeah, he will be the next one’.
“We knew he is a real talent, we knew he has massive strength, especially on the ball, stuff like this.
“But how will he deal with the next-quality Premier League strikers? How is that physically, stuff like this?
“We wanted to give us the chance and him the time to show that, and we thought the situation in the squad is right to do so. If you want, centre-half No. 5 in that moment.
“Joey [Gomez] was not immediately planned as a right or left-back backup, because we had obviously Conor [Bradley], who then got injured, and we had the two left-backs.
“So it was not necessary, so we thought that was a good situation to have a look.
“He showed immediately that he wants to be in the team in each session and it’s a joy, a pure joy, to have him.”
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