Jurgen Klopp has expressed admiration for Liverpool defender Jarell Quansah, acknowledging his pivotal role in “saving” the team during Thursday’s 4-0 victory over LASK.
In a match where Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, and Mohamed Salah found the net, Liverpool secured their position as winners of their Europa League group with a game to spare.
Despite the comfortable-looking scoreline, Klopp revealed that there were tense moments during the game. He specifically commended the 20-year-old Quansah for his crucial contributions in protecting goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher, highlighting the young defender’s role in maintaining the team’s defensive solidity. Quansah’s efforts evidently played a significant part in Liverpool’s successful outing in the Europa League match.
“Absolutely perfect,” Klopp said of the young defender. “Jarell played a super game.
“We knew we had Jarell. Did we know that he will show up like this? No, not exactly, but we were pretty hopeful, so the future is bright. It’s cool.
“Our own boy, calm on the ball, good in the challenge, quick, ruthless in the right moments and besides Caoimhin, who had one or two saves, [he] probably had the most spectacular defensive situations when he saved our backside in some moments. So, that’s really good. [It’s] top news for us.”
Toulouse’s draw with Union SG ensured Liverpool could no longer be caught at the top of Group E – a huge boost for Klopp as he can now afford to rest his key players when they close out the current stage against the Belgian side later this month.
“Two top results for us tonight in the group,” Klopp said. “It was clear, with the defeat at Toulouse we made it a bit more tricky, but because of our result and their result [tonight] we are now top of the table and that will not change. That’s good, very important in the busy, busy, busy schedule we have from now on.
“[There were] a lot of positives in the game, a lot of good football. The thing I didn’t like too much, and told the boys at half-time, [was] this game should have been put to bed already at half-time. A third, fourth, fifth goal… you cannot play better, you cannot set it up better, [but] you can finish it better obviously, but we didn’t.
“So, what was it? Fifty-something [minutes] when we scored the third? That’s then very helpful as well. We made changes and lost a bit of rhythm. Then you see immediately, if you don’t play you will not stay in charge of the game. If you lose balls in the wrong moment, LASK was there, had chances, Caoimhin worked for his clean sheet, which he desperately wanted, and that’s good. Scored a fourth goal in the last minute or whatever, so result top, performance really good [and] nobody got injured. All good.”