Arne Slot explains why he really took Jarell Quansah off for Liverpool at half-time against Ipswich

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Liverpool are off to a winning start in the Premier League under new head coach Arne Slot.

The Reds were somewhat playing second fiddle to Ipswich Town on Saturday as the Suffolk side returned to the top division after a 22-year absence.

Liverpool were the last team the Tractor Boys faced in the Premier League, with the Reds beating them 5-0 at Anfield in May 2002.

For a while it had looked like Kieran McKenna’s team may avenge that thumping and cause an upset. Ipswich looked the more likely team to score throughout the first-half.

This led to Slot making a change at the break, with Jarell Quansah hooked for Ibrahima Konate. Quansah did not look happy on the bench during the second-half, and it seems that he was on the wrong end of a tough talk from the boss.

Arne Slot explains Jarell Quansah decision

It was a little bit of a surprise to see Quansah come off at half-time. The 21-year-old has been Slot’s go-to guy in defence throughout pre-season.

Having come back to training ahead of Konate, the academy graduate was picked ahead of the Frenchman for Saturday’s league opener.

That he was taken off despite Liverpool being relatively comfortable had led to suggestions that Quansah may have been injured.

But according to Slot himself, he was simply not at all happy with how the England U21 international performed in his duels against Ipswich’s attackers.

READ MORE: What Liverpool fans were singing about Arne Slot during their Premier League opener

Asked by TNT Sports what he said to the team at half-time to provoke a reaction, the Dutchman admitted that he was not pleased with the way his team defended, and let them know it.

“The first thing I said was that we don’t have to speak about tactics if you lose so many duels,” Slot said.

“It’s not that Jarell lost every duel, many of us lost too many duels, but we needed Ibou Konate to win the long balls in the air from their number nine. That helped, that gave us control.”

Asked to confirm that Quansah had been taken off as a tactical substitution and not an injury-related change, Slot said that that was indeed the case.

Bad start for Jarell Quansah

Having got the nod from Slot on Saturday, Quansah will have felt that he had got over a big hurdle.

The centre-back ended last season as Jurgen Klopp’s preferred partner to Virgil van Dijk and it was a big thing for him to go into this term cementing that position.

However, that positive has immediately turned to a negative and it would now seem unlikely that Quansah will start next week’s match against Brentford.

With Joe Gomez exploring a move away from Liverpool, Quansah’s display at Portman Road was another signal that Slot may need to look into the transfer market in the next couple of weeks.

A steep learning curve for Jarell, who has been on an upward trajectory ever since the start of last season. But he’ll bounce back, no doubt about that.