Jurgen Klopp had “no doubt” Jarell Quansah was ready to start in the Europa League, but revealed he will still be considered for Liverpool U21s games.
Quansah came back into the starting lineup as Liverpool hosted Union SG in Group E, producing a mature display alongside Ibrahima Konate.
The 20-year-old was heavily involved throughout, including a series of vital stops late on before Diogo Jota added to Ryan Gravenberch‘s opener to seal a 2-0 win.
His battle with striker Kevin Rodriguez, a pacy, physical threat, was picked up on during Klopp’s post-match press conference, with the manager having “no doubt” Quansah was ready.
“That’s part of development. If you are not ready for [physical battles] then it’s difficult to play, to be honest, in adult football,” he told reporters.
“But I was not in doubt that he is ready for that. It’s all because of him. It was not a difficult decision for us to line him up tonight.
“He’s still young, we have a really good football team together, it means he will get minutes and he will play U21s as well.
“But it’s nice to see. It’s a joy to watch his development since he’s properly with us.
“He’s a really good footballer, on the ball he’s outstanding.
“The chance for Mo in the first half, he would have got the assist. It was top defending, really quick thinking, stepping into it.
“He probably feels rather good, I would say tonight. Rightly so.”
Klopp made nine changes to his side from the 2-1 defeat at Tottenham on Saturday, with only Alisson and Mohamed Salah keeping their places.
But while it was put to him that there is little drop-off between his first-choice and rotated XIs, he was keen to avoid overemphasising his strength in depth.
“I said it before, always when you speak about these kinds of things, a week later we miss five players,” he explained.
“This time we spoke so many times, everybody told me ‘five strikers, plus a talent [in Ben Doak], fantastic’.
“For the weekend we have three, and one (Cody Gakpo) is out for a while and the other (Jota), OK is back again [afterwards], but that’s how it is.
“That’s what we need to have.
“How can we now stand here, not having an injury crisis – which we don’t have in the moment, hopefully it stays like that – and not change the team?
“We need a specific amount of players for four competitions, that’s what we have, and I’m really happy with that. Absolutely.
“But we changed nine times tonight, it would have been 10 if Caoimhin [Kelleher] could have played.
“Good, important, necessary, because we play in four competitions.”
