2023/24 Season Report Card - Jarrell Quansah

What a story this is. What a find he was. Last season he was playing at Bristol Rovers in League One and 12 months later he’s ending the season as the first choice partner for Virgil Van Dijk and getting called up for England preliminary squad for the Euros. Incredible.

He stood out in pre-season as someone who could be useful in the cups when we need to rotate and he began the season number five in the centre back pecking order. Joel's unfortunate injury bumped him up a spot but then he leapfrogged Gomez and even Konate with the quality and assuredness of his performances.

He only made one real mistake, a costly one in the league draw at Old Trafford, and there may have been a few goals we conceded where with a bit more experience he might have done things a little differently, but they weren’t what you could call errors. The really impressive thing about him is that he remains completely unfazed when he does do something wrong and he looks to have a great temperament. He’s probably the calmest player I have ever seen for his age. His demeanour never changes, he’s just calm, quiet, composed and confident at all times. 

He’s brilliant on the ball and he's similar to Matip in that he has a great knack for being able to play passes between the lines to get us turned and on the attack, and he can also carry it forward comfortably too and doesn't panic when he gets over the halfway line. The long range passing isn’t quite there yet but everything else is as it’s that ability own the ball that was probably the reason he was able to move ahead of Konate as the season went on. 

He really caught the eye with England under 21s too and Klopp was overheard chatting with a reporter from Sky when he referred to Quansah as “Virgil 2.0”. That’s the highest of high praise, and we don’t know if Quansah will ever be as great as Virgil has been, but what we do know is that he’s miles better at 21 than Virgil was. And he gets to learn from the great man himself, which can only help. He’s even started to add goals to his game and has three already. It should be four but he had one laughably disallowed in a European game (at Toulouse I think). The sky is the limit for this kid.

Previous Season Ratings:

N/A 

This Season’s Rating: 8.5/10

I think this is the least he deserved all things considered. Take away the mistake at Old Trafford and I might have even gone with a 9.

Best Moment: 

Probably being named ahead of Konate for the final four games even though Ibou was fully fit and available for selection.

Worst Moment:

Old Trafford. 

The Future?

Short term he'll continue in a centre back rotation and the change of manager might see him take a step back behind Konate again, but there are enough games to go around and he'll get his opportunities to impress the new boss. Long term he should be looking to be the one to replace Virgil eventually, because getting to play alongside him for a few years is the perfect apprenticeship.