Yes, he left England immediately, and it was reported somewhere that he was at the Feyenoord vs. Ajax match on Sunday.
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I think that says two things when looking at the broader graph:
- Other teams starting adopting similar gengenpressing tactics, which meant that what was once a Liverpool advantage became more of the norm.
- As Liverpool improved and teams became wary of their press, you saw more low blocks, which lends itself to less distance covered, which is why you see a general downward trend.
I don’t put as much stock in some of these broader numbers and, instead, I’d be curious to know how much distance is covered against more open opponents. That would give me a better sense of whether this trend is a symptom of lack of fitness, energy, or commitment.
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If we were a team that was brilliant on the ball, and, in the best sense of the phrase, made the ball do all the running, I would not mind about the distance covered stats.
But we are neither one thing nor the other. Neither hard working, nor brilliant on the ball.
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Quansah was at the club last season when we won the league.
he probably wanted more game time, personally i think we still win the league if he got that game time, your making the assumption that if JQ played, we wouldnt have won the league…to you its either/or when it really doesnt have to be, but that is not the issue here.
the discussion is centred around getting rid of him this season…having no belief in him (Slot doesnt) ..getting rid after such an upheaval this summer in playing staff…and not loaning him out…
and guess what, it was a shite call… we are a shambles this year, he would have played more, and he would have given us the op. to rest VVD… it was a mistake to let him go.
its also a massive issue to assume Guehi was in the bag…
i dont understand the backwards and forwards
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I had no issues with the sale of Quansah.
It was probably a combination of us receiving what we judged an important offer and the player also wanting to go and get regular football.
We have an option included and I don’t think it’s anything more than that. We cannot “guarantee” to anyone what we’ll want to do at CB in a year or two (which can be a long time in football) and what Quansah will want then, football and money wise.
We possibly agreed on some very basic aspects of a potential deal (not the whole of it), but I don’t view it like it’s set for him to return in the summer of 2026 or 2027. Probably more no than yes. Not to mention Quansah would likely want to be viewed as a starter if we’d be bringing him back.
Some things also need to align timing wise, so I don’t think it’s clever to connect Quansah’s sale to the chase of Guehi too much. Leverkusen also have their own missions and we had a decision to make. We brought someone like Leoni in a window in which we sold someone like Quansah.
Shit happened with the deal for Guehi and what I could ask our club is perhaps we could’ve worked on another target during that time, knowing also that we’re sometimes a club that decides on a target and it’s either him or nobody else.
And yeah, we had more bad luck with Leoni’s injury, even if I cannot tell on the basis of an hour’s performance against Southampton at home whether that would’ve made a difference in that position. He looked decent, but that’s a too small sample.
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At the very least, Quansah and/or other underutilized squad players could and should have been used more often in the final matches after the title was already secured. There’s no excuse for this not happening. It could have sent a strong message to the team that they were valued, etc.; instead, they were only needlessly sidelined.
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If they were going to swap the coach at this break, I think we would have heard something by now.
We also look to be a bit of a mess at executive level at the moment, which doesn’t help.
The other thing is that it is assumed that Alonso would take over. It’s possible that any preferred choice is actually in another position at the moment and isn’t available until the end of the season.
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Slot is clearly staying until the end of the season. Otherwise, he would have been sacked early today.
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Or just in need of a break.
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There should be a thread called
“We disagree fundamentally on selling Quansah”
Then we could talk about Arne Slot in this one.
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@Livvy thanks for the graph that is fascinating.
I’m not sure what the correlation with distance covered and league position is.
We won the league near the bottom of that stat and with Klopp just above the average.
But the trend is clear. Even under Klopp it gradually lowered and Slots style maintained the trend to new lows. Other teams ramping it up? Our lack of press? Older players not tracking? Whatever.
Certainly a talking point though and another Slot bashing angle.
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Sounds like we might be in a situation where we need to sort out Edwards and Hughes before deciding on Slot. A new manager will want to know who they’re working for before signing on.
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No, I’m not. I’m saying we don’t know. I’m saying that suggesting (as people have) that Slot should have played him more is also adding a variable that might have meant we didn’t win the league.
I’ve already said what I think the decision was with Quansah, but I’ll go over it again.
I think Quansah was at the point where he needed to be playing regular, week in week out football, and he wasn’t going to be first choice here - even if Slot had more time for him. Van Dijk and Konate were the clear two going into the season.
So there are three main benefits to doing the deal as it was structured (£40m, with a £60m buy back).
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Liverpool get to bring him back in a couple of years, hopefully a much better player, for £20m net, which is a good deal considering you can pay double that for prospects.
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The way PSR is structured means we get to book £40m pure profit from the sale of a homegrown player. That creates a huge amount of compliance wriggle room for us. Even if we end up bringing him back for sixty, that would be amortised over a 5-6 year deal.
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If he doesn’t develop as we’d hoped then it’s not our problem and the £40m looks good money.
So I don’t see it as bombing him out. I see it as decent player who needed games has been allowed to leave to get them, and a pathway for him to return put in place.
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It is about Slot ultimately, since he is one being accused of bullying/bombing out/not rating Quansah.
If there is another conversation you want to have about Slot, go ahead.
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There have been plenty of games over the years where you would see a young, inexperienced CB make a costly mistake and the grizzled ex-pro on commentary would state “he’ll learn from that” or “that’s to be expected from a young CB learning his trade, he’ll be better for it”.
Not with Slot though. Hook him after 45 minutes and ship him out asap.
The actions of a coward and a bully.
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Lighten up a bit Mascot, not every comment is a barb at you.
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He won the league, mate.
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It did tickle me seeing you arguing with each other when there is a lot of back slapping in the politics thread - joke.
I think both sides of the argument are right and maybe better judged with hindsight.
Didn’t Slot start JQ in the first game and haul him off after a shaky 1st half. None of us know if this was out of frustration or protecting JQ. JQ actually looked very shaky in the game time he was given, mistakes, own goal(s), which was a shame because he performed well when required the Season before. There was also gossip about his off the pitch antics and Only Fans.
Slot also gave Nallo a chance and he got sent off twice.
It is a Hughes/Edwards fuck up irrelevant of whether Slot liked him or not. At the time it was a good deal, like the money we were supposedly getting for Elliot. The option for JQ to get 1st team football in a league which has been good for young English players development.
The fuck up is, JQ squad position was not replaced. Why did we leave it to the last minute to go for Guehi? Why was cover not signed already?
Why did we negotiate a loan to buy deal with Villa, a club struggling with PSR and have now renegaded on the deal.
My only conclusion (and I maybe incorrect with Elliot in terms of HG/PSR) is that the figures were used to balance the books from an accounting view.
So I can’t accept this being on Slot and no one knows how our season would have been different if we had kept either. JQ could have broke his leg in the 1st game.
The issue/fuck up is that we didn’t have that option. So if Konate/or a 30+ VVD got injured/lost form we were going to rely on Joe Gomez, who can’t even rely on his own body.
Maybe Gravy/Endo were seen as cover? We played Robbo at CB in the friendlies. Either way they were all bad decisions.
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I’m not sure what’s worse. When we have football, or when we don’t 
We’ve been so crap that a little break from the old footie might give us a chance to take a breath, walk the dog, read a book, etc.
But no football is also doing strange things to us, as we are going round and round on Quansah.
If nothing happens with Slot very, very soon; he’s here until the summer, so it’s time to regroup and hope we finish in the CL spots and don’t get a shellacking against PSG.