“He reacted in the way every player should.”
Liverpool defender Jarell Quansah asked to train last Sunday to make amends for his poor performance against Ipswich Town last Saturday.
The 21-year-old had been subbed off at half-time by Arne Slot and the youngster was spotted with a gloomy expression on the substitutes’ bench.
At the time, Liverpool were level but Slot said his team were losing too many duels against Ipswich’s forward Liam Delap.
Slot revealed he spoke to his team, including Quansah the next day to make it clear he was not singling the England international out.
In his press conference, Slot was asked how the youngster took the setback. Slot said: “In a way you would expect a player to react. I spoke to him immediately after the game and again on Sunday, the day after. At the end of that conversation, he asked if he could train on Sunday.
“Normally he should have done recovery (sessions) that day but he asked to train. On Tuesday, he picked up a bit of an injury so could not train on Wednesday so let’s see if he can train today. He reacted in the way every player should.”
Slot insisted that he made it clear to his team that it was not solely Quansah’s fault.
He continued: “I don’t think there should be that much into it. What I said was he did not lose every duel. But he lost one or two important ones. What has been told to me is that I said he lost every duel which he did not do. I said to the team, it was not about Jarell.
“We as a team did not do well. At that 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 [Konate].”
Quansah is a doubt for Sunday’s game against Brentford after picking up that knock on Tuesday.
Former Liverpool players Fabio Carvalho and Sepp van den Berg will come face-to-face with their ex-teammates as their Brentford side take on Slot’s Reds.
Joe Gomez, who was left out of the squad last weekend due to uncertainty surrounding his future, is now expected to stay at the club according to Slot.
The manager was asked if Gomez’s head was in the right place: “Yeah, it has been in the right place for three weeks. He has worked really hard since he came back.”
He went on to clarify that he is not expecting any more of his players to leave: “’He is one of the players that I see new things from and learn things that I see from him, also combined with other players. It has been a good week for him and us until now. At this moment I am expecting everyone to be here (after the transfer window).”
