Jarell Quansah, 20, received praise from Jurgen Klopp for his Man of the Match performance at Bournemouth in “outrageous” conditions.
In the fierce weather of the League Cup match on the south coast, the youthful center-back made his eighth appearance of the year and was the most impressive player.
Despite the unfavourable conditions, Quansah finished the game with the most touches (114) and the highest passing accuracy (89%) of any player on the pitch.
His manager was impressed with his performance and said, “Wow,” following what he considered to be a Man of the Match showing. Few could argue with that assessment!
Was he the star player of the game? “[He was] mine,” Klopp remarked after the game. A truly fantastic game, whoa. He cherished it.
“I told him right away that he was ecstatic about the game. He was focused, aggressive in his tackles, and a master at reading the game.
Laughing, he continued, “Caoimh was like, ‘give it to him, let’s see what he can do.'” A great, really fantastic game with one or two challenging circumstances, but that’s normal.
The “outrageous” conditions in the second half, which caused the ball to travel backwards with any long ball from Caoimhin Kelleher, added to the spectacle of the performance.
“We should have scored more in the first half when the wind was blowing our way, but there were two different halves,” Klopp remarked. “You could see it right away when it was working against us; it made a huge impact.
The boys put up a fierce fight, but it was cruel. It was terrible on the bench, extremely bad two yards in front of the bench, and ridiculous one yard on the pitch.
“We had a great time playing, it’s all about the cup and making it through.” The lads are overjoyed.