Joey Barton praises new signing from Liverpool – “We’re absolutely delighted”

The Bristol Rovers manager, Joey Barton, is “extremely happy” with Jarell Quansah’s early performances and appreciates their “confidence.”

Quansah has joined Bristol Rovers on loan For the remainder. The 19-year-old center-back got his first experience playing regularly for the first team.

It will be the teen’s first start at the senior level after sitting on the bench three times for Liverpool when Rovers go to Morecambe in League One on Saturday.

Quansah will face a difficult test. But Barton is confident in his capacity to perform, as he told Bristol World before the game.

Joey Barton went full praise for Quansah

Barton said:

“He’s got really good qualities, and when you’ve been training with Liverpool’s first team, being in and around that picture, the next step in your progression is to get out and have regular men’s football.

Thankfully, Liverpool has trusted us with this stage of his development. And we’re absolutely delighted to have him.

He’s just a really good passer of the football. Obviously, he’s been brought in to be a defender. But we want to control the ball, and we want to play. And it’s important that our defenders are capable of breaking lines and handling the ball.”

Quansah might be “startled by the speed of some things that happen in the game,”. But Barton acknowledged that “it will only be a matter of time that he adjusts to it” in his pre-match preview with the club.

He will have partly learned that when he watched the youngster live while seeing Liverpool‘s under-21 team defeat Paris Saint-Germain 4-2 earlier in January.

He added:

“Sometimes, when you’re in a spot where you know players are going to be available, you can watch clips of them. And you can talk about them and speak to coaches. But nothing beats watching them live and getting your eyes on them.

For us, to see him play in that arena and see how he moved and all those types of things were very important because we don’t have an abundance of loans.

You’ve got to make sure the ones that you take are right for playing in your style. For us, we think Jarell absolutely is.”