Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand has called on Liverpool’s experienced players, including Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, and Mohamed Salah, to help boost the confidence of Jarell Quansah.
Quansah, who recently came close to securing a spot in Gareth Southgate’s England squad for Euro 2024, was handed a starting role in new Liverpool boss Arne Slot’s Premier League debut.
Partnering Van Dijk at the heart of the defence, the young centre-back faced a tough challenge against Ipswich Town’s physical and dynamic attacking force.
Struggling to cope with the pressure, Quansah was substituted at halftime, with Ibrahima Konate taking his place.
In his post-match interview, Slot singled out the youngster as one of several players who had lost too many duels on the pitch.
While Ferdinand appreciated Slot’s candid assessment, he stressed the importance of rebuilding Quansah’s confidence.
He urged Liverpool’s senior players to support the young defender, acknowledging the crucial role they must play in his development after a difficult performance.
While speaking on the Vibe With Five podcast, Ferdinand said: “The Virgil van Dijks, the Mohamed Salahs, the goalkeeper – I think there’s a job for those guys now to get around the kid and to reinstill confidence and say, ‘Listen, we’ve all had this’.
“If a young kid got hammered by the manager or a loss of form, I used to take that on as my role in the squad to go, ‘Listen guys, we’ve all been there, we all lose confidence.
“I get hammered by the manager, but he wants a reaction now, he wants to see what you can come up with’.
“I think that’s important and I think looking back as a young player, I would like to see him get one more opportunity at least to go and rectify that situation and go, ‘No, I can be dominant, I can win balls, I can win aerial challenges and be dependable’.
“Now, obviously, there’s going to be a question mark. Is he good enough, is he strong enough and is he dominant enough?
“You’ve got Konate there and that is his forte. Who wins that battle between those two to become Van Dijk’s partner?”
Arne Slot explained the decisions he made at Portman Road during his post-match interview.
Speaking to TNT Sport after the game, he said: “The first thing I said was we don’t have to speak about tactics if you lose so many duels, and that’s what we did.
“It’s not that Jarell lost every duel, many of us lost too many duels.
“So we needed Konate to win these long balls in the air towards their No. 9 (Delap), so that helped and gave us control.
“But they put so, so much energy into the first half, running, fighting, playing all over the pitch one v one, and I don’t think they could keep up with that tempo in the second half.”
Gary Neville, meanwhile believes that Arne Slot has already demonstrated his ability to be both clinical and ruthless in his debut Premier League match.
Neville said: “Arne Slot was quite tough on Quansah. 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.
“So 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.
“Felt like they needed to win the duels, I think that was his main thread behind the decision and it worked.
“You’ve got to say in the second half Liverpool were a lot better and it was a good win for them.”
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