Best CB in the world right now.
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Damaged < shattered
I wrote that a young player’s confidence might be damaged by being subbed at half time. That might just be for a couple of weeks or months. You turned that into shattered, which sounds career ending.
It’s a blow for any player to be hooked at half time and especially for a young guy just establishing himself in the team. That doesn’t make him weak, it’s just human. It’s how he deals with the setback that will be decisive. With Quansah, there are good signs. He came back strongly after his mistake against Man U last season, and there’s every reason to expect the same this time.
For Slot, in his first match, to make a move like that shows decisiveness and clarity.
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We were okay in a fiar number of matches when VVD wasn’t around. But we had Matip to compensate with his experience.
Konate has to step up and be the senior CB now.
I wondered at the time…if Slot had subbed him to save him from damage from the Ipswich mids who seemed intent on injuring someone during the game, knowing that Ibu has more muscle about him…JQ just needs a few more days in the gym…and a few more meals of stew n dumplings…as long as he(JQ) doesn’t take it to heart and Slot explains…I hope he will be fine.
Yes, but for many of these games he was actually partnered with Konaté.
Yep, that will probably lead to a shorter tenure than Klopp’s. Eventually, there will be cracks, players unhappy and he’ll lose the dressing room. Klopp’s incredible ability to last at every club during years without being sacked comes from that willingness to come through difficulties everyone together, and to publicly back the players who experience problems. Changing players who don’t perform is no issue, but if Slot starts out singling out individuals in public, he won’t last long imo.
Anyway, well done for that first win. It wasn’t easy to go at Portman Road for their return to the PL, and the team did well enough. He has the lads focused and able to compete, so that’s a big positive for now.
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Sorry for using the wrong word didn’t mean it, but in the football world you have to be strong and I think Jarrell is and i think he will be better for it.
I was shocked when he was subbed, I thought he had done well, but Ibou was a colossus when he came on but overall I think Jarrell will be the backbone of our team, I rate him highly.
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Quansah will he fine he’s resiliant.
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I think everyone is still getting used to the idea of a new manager. Slot comes across as being personable, quite urbane, in fact. But he isn’t Klopp. He comes across as the sort of guy who will fist-bump the players rather than bear-hug them. He’ll shake the fans’ hands rather than roar them on.
I’m still curious to see how he reacts when things don’t go well. What will his response be if we lose or get messed around by referees again?
The fact is, he isn’t Klopp and I don’t really want him to be. That would be faking it. He needs to be his own man.
I’m still thinking in terms of Paisley taking over from Shankly. Bob was quieter and, whilst he could produce a memorable quote, he didn’t have that sharp wit that Shanks had. At the same time, I think he could also be brutally ruthless which Shankly always struggled with as he was a big softie at heart. I think the results bore that out.
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Good point RW. The parallels are definitely there. Bob didn’t have Shanks’ charisma, but he was hugely successful.
If Arne can achieve half of what Paisley did, we’ll all be happy.
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I would suspect that he’s wise enough to say that the team performance wasn’t good enough in public and then speak to individual players in private.
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Would be better if we had four who complement each other or at least another option to play instead of Virg sometimes 
I do still have that sense that we’ll see a preferred pairing emerge and it’ll be Virg and Ibou. Not slight to Quansah or his performance at the weekend but on that right side we’ve got much better passers than on the left and so we could sacrifice a bit of on the ball ability for strength and combativeness in those duels.
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Going forward, I hope for the same of course.
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It’s also important to consider that doing poorly enough that you are a candidate to be taken off at half time is also bad for the confidence of a young player and has the added disadvantage of risking of us dropping points.
It’s not something we’ve seen from his game before so shouldn’t be that big a deal, but maybe also an illustration of the importance of complimentary partnerships where you have to have the balance in the aggressiveness of your CBs and Quansah may need to learn to be bit more proactive if he’s going to get more games as a partner to Virgil.
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Been so for at least the past half decade.
We all know it’s going to be impossible to “replace” Virgil, but let’s hope they can find an heir that will make us not miss him too badly.
Slot’s actual words:
“First thing I said was we don’t have to speak about tactics if we lose so many duels and that’s what we did.
“That’s not that Jarell lost every duel – many of us lost too many duels – but I think we needed Ibou Konate to win these long balls in the air from the No. 9.
“So that helps, that gave us control but they put so, so, so much energy in the first half.”
“The second half was a joy to watch”
“We lost almost every long ball, every duel to both sides and in the second half we was ready,” Slot continued.“I don’t think our problem in the first half was our midfield. I think our problem in the first half was more that we lost too many duels – our defenders lost too many and our attackers didn’t win enough.”
I don’t think that he would have mentioned Quansah, had he not been specifically asked about him. If he called out anyone, that was the entire team. And he was very much right to do so after that first half.
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After watching that first half I’m over the moon he made changes.
He will have had conversations privately he isn’t throwing the guy under the bus he just chose the best option and that was Konate and that was proven in the second half.
Point about Paisley is very good having read his biography there seems to be a fair few coincidences.
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He had to remove one of Van Dijk or Quansah , Anyone would remove Quansah in that position.
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Shearer was such a good manager he relegated the only side he ever took charge of.
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