Why Jarell Quansah's 'best in Europe' Liverpool stats could save them £60m this summer

Liverpool’s 2023/24 season will always be dominated by the exit of Jurgen Klopp - and rightfully so - but one of the most surprising and welcome stories of the season is the emergence of Jarell Quansah.

In just under a year, he’s gone from making his first 16 senior appearances to starting 26 for Liverpool’s first team. The step-up was deemed to a bridge too far at the beginning of the season but as we enter the final weekend of the campaign, he has become Virgil van Dijk’s most consistent partner.

The latest statistics show that he’s not just performing well in relation to his experience - he’s outperforming most of the defenders in Europe. According to DataMB, Quansah is the only centre-back that ranks in the 95th percentile, or above, for both defensive duel win rate and passes completed.

That tells us that he’s a modern-day centre-back who can do both and that’s vital at the top level these days. Plus, as his header showed against Aston Villa, he is an attacking threat as he has netted two times and provided three assists this season which is just another cherry on top of the already-impressive metaphorical cake.

Taking it a step further, he ranks extremely highly when it comes to centre-backs aged 23 or under. The league boasts a whole host of talented players in that position such as Jarrad Branthwaite, William Saliba, Micky van de Ven, Levi Colwill, Murillo, Josko Gvardiol and Marc Guehi, to name a few. And seeing those names help to contextualise the fact he ranks first for defensive duels won (%) aerial duels won (%) aerial duels per 90 and progressive runs per 90 all in his first full season - it’s astonishing.

His experiences across the Europa League, domestic cup competitions, the EFL Cup final at Wembley plus starting in huge games against the likes of Erling Haaland will only have skyrocketed his development. The long-term injury suffered by Joel Matip granted him the opportunity to play 32 times in all competitions.

With Matip set to depart, it leaves the incoming Arne Slot with four senior centre-backs but that could change this summer. We’ve seen links for months to the likes of Guehi, Ousmane Diomande, Antonio Silva, Tosin Adarabioyo and Goncalo Inacio, to name a few, with the most expensive of those costing upwards of £52m. Quansah’s emergence may help to bypass such costs and he’s more than earned the right to start ahead of Ibrahim Konate and Joe Gomez - he’s been that good.