There once lived a man who had all the makings of a top defender. He was a centre-back by trade, standing pretty tall — around 6-foot-2 — while possessing an elaborate passing range which made him ideal for the modern game.
He was aggressive, vocal, decent in the air and represented his country at the highest level, but there was just one problem. And a pretty sizeable one at that. The man in question, for all of his strengths, was essentially cursed. He was born with the dreaded Bozo Gene.
Dejan Lovren was his name. He was capable of dominant displays, competing at the absolute pinnacle of the sport for some time, with Jürgen Klopp often putting his faith in him.
But for all of the good that Lovren offered, you always knew there was some degree of bad lurking just around the corner. You knew his deck of cards could fall at any minute.
That was the Bozo Gene in him. He would perform well and remain under the radar for 85 minutes, before essentially shooting himself in the foot and losing the game for his team.
Lovren was haunted by moments of inexplicable madness. A stray pass. A strange decision. A mistimed tackle. An own goal. You name it. His career ended up being pretty excellent to be fair to him. But he was always fighting against that inner moron.
Now, let’s be fair to Lovren. The very fact there’s such a thing as a Bozo Gene in football — I mean, there isn’t, but bare with me here — suggests it’s a relatively common thing.
And indeed it is. Lovren isn’t the only centre-back to have been stung by his inner moron over the years, no. I can think of plenty of players who have suffered from an identical handicap in England and beyond.
Every Arsenal fan under the sun would throw Shkodran Mustafi’s name into the mix, for example. Nicolás Otamendi is another. You’ve also got Marcos Rojo, Harry Maguire, Dayot Upamecano, Tyrone Mings, Wout Faes and perhaps even Cristian Romero to name but a few.
While I’m here, I’ll list a few goalkeepers, too. The Bozo Gene doesn’t discriminate. It goes beyond defenders. Simon Mignolet was cursed, as was Loris Karius, with those two sharing the Anfield net in 2017/18.
Hugo Lloris also fits the bill, as does André Onana. Remember Claudio Bravo? Yeah, he’s another name. And don’t even get me started on Illan Meslier, who will return to the Premier League with Leeds United next term.
The Bozo Gene is a killer. It can undo so much good in an instant. You might play really well for the most part, but if you end up costing your team three points because you accidentally slipped on a banana skin, nobody will care.
It’s tough when a centre-back has the Bozo Gene. Those players are expected to be the last line of their team’s defence, so any mistake often ends up proving to be decisive. You end up in the newspapers.
Well, I’m here today because I’m concerned. I’m concerned about Jarell Quansah. He’s only 22 years old at present — which makes him a bit tricky to diagnose with certainty — but I think he might have the Bozo Gene. I think he’s potentially cut from a similar cloth to Lovren.
I don’t want to get carried away here. We fight against exaggeration on this Substack. But the evidence is mounting. Quansah has a knack for being the unluckiest man in the room.
On Sunday afternoon, Liverpool faced Chelsea. Nobody on Merseyside cares about the result, but a few of Arne Slot’s rotating cast got presented with opportunities to impress at Stamford Bridge.
Wataru Endō was perhaps the only player who delivered, but Quansah ended up in a heap of trouble. Just like Mustafi, he started the clash as a background character before gradually assuming the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons.
Quansah scored an own goal after 56 minutes — and yes, this one was definitely just unlucky — before giving away a penalty seconds before the final whistle.
Bad things happen in football. But I’m concerned because this sort of thing is becoming a recurring theme with Quansah. There’s enough in there to suggest his inner moron is eating well.
Indeed, while his misfortune mostly started at the beginning of this season, we perhaps saw our first piece of evidence under Klopp last term. It happened at Old Trafford, with Bruno Fernandes scoring a goal from the halfway line. Quansah got the assist.
This season, after just 45 minutes of football under Slot, Quansah got subbed for Ibrahima Konaté against Ipswich Town in Liverpool’s Premier League opener. He hasn’t quite been the same since.
When he next featured a month later in the Carabao Cup, he scored an own goal in a 5-1 win over West Ham United. He didn’t appear again until the Carabao Cup returned, and another few mistakes followed.
With Liverpool 2-0 up against Brighton and Hove Albion, Quansah attempted to carry the ball out of his own defensive third before getting robbed, with the Seagulls scoring from the resulting turnover.
Brighton went on to score another goal in that contest just minutes before the end, with a weak Tariq Lamptey shot hitting Quansah and rolling into the back of the net. Not technically an own goal, but close.
By that stage, it seemed like Slot had seen enough, next deploying the Reds youngster as a right-back rather than a centre-back. A subtle change, but one that ensured Quansah would have a safety net behind him, protecting the team from any of his potential errors.
The Englishman’s next start as a centre-back came in the Carabao Cup once again. Liverpool faced Southampton away from home, and while Quansah performed reasonably well, he still nearly stood on a rake before the end.
The Reds led 2-0 before the Saints sparked a late rally by pulling one back. So with just minutes before the final whistle, Southampton hit a ball over the top to Mateus Fernandes. Quansah got caught on the wrong side of his opponent and brought him down. It was a clear red card, but somehow, Simon Hooper didn’t think so. Liverpool escaped with a shaky 2-1 win.
It could be a confidence thing. It could be a rhythm thing. I realise there’s a human being in there and I do sometimes get the feeling that he’s trying to do too much to impress. And yes, I know he’s still young for a centre-back, but he’s not that young.
What if I told you that Konaté was the same age when we bought him from RB Leipzig? Dean Huijsen is two years younger right now. Joško Gvardiol is only 12 months older than Quansah. William Saliba played 38 out of 38 in the Premier League for Arsenal when he was 22.
And my concern here isn’t necessarily experience, no, it’s nature. I’m worried about that Bozo Gene. Because it doesn’t matter whether you’re 19 or 36, if you’ve got it, it’s just part of your game regardless.
I’m not quite sure what lies ahead for Quansah. In all seriousness, the Bozo Gene thing is a bit of fun. I don’t want to come across as too harsh. This isn’t a hit piece. I’m just conscious that he’s painting an error-prone picture of himself under Slot.
It might be a moment in time. When it rains, it pours, after all. He might just need an arm around his shoulder. And he hasn’t been helped by the high-profile nature of his errors, with each one resulting in a goal.
Every single Quansah mistake seems to get punished. Fernandes scoring from 50 yards is rough. Virgil van Dijk hitting a clearance against you is rough. Big deflections are rough.
But at this stage, it’s entirely possible that he’s a Lovren disciple. Good but flammable. Another Mustafi. Another Otamendi. Another Mignolet. Players like that can deliver, but they’re usually more trouble than they’re worth. At the very least, it’s something to keep an eye on.
A big summer lies ahead for the Liverpool defender.
The fact that everyone who read the title of this knew what the article was going to be about, says it all really…
Spot on Josh.
I was thinking of Lovren and Skrtel myself earlier in relation to Jarell.
Good players but maybe not quite good enough when the standard is Saliba and Gabriel, Van Dijk and Konate.
If we sign a Huijsen or Hato then it’s hard to see where Quansah is going to get the minutes with us that he needs to improve.
Hopefully he can put this season behind him, but it’s hard to escape the ‘Neco Williams’ feeling that he’s a good academy player who will probably have a good PL career but who just isn’t quite the level we need to rely on him.