🔗 Share this article

"To an observer, it seems insane," Jarell Quansah says, as he looks back on his recent summer, when rapid transformation felt like a constant. "However, that's just how it goes ... football is a crazy game."

A Quick Recap

Shortly after winning the European Under-21 Championship with the English national team at the end of June, Quansah opted to depart from Liverpool, to join the Bundesliga side in a £30m deal.

The significant transfer sum equalled high expectations as the 22-year-old was tasked with finding his feet in a foreign land and at a team where the turnover was substantial. Erik ten Hag had stepped in to replace Xabi Alonso and a number of key players were gone or going – chief among them Florian Wirtz, key squad members, influential figures, prominent athletes, Granit Xhaka, established players and Jonathan Tah.

Bundesliga Debut

Quansah's first league appearance came on 23 August at their home ground to their opponents and the centre-half found the net after five minutes, though the achievement was overshadowed by sadness. His primary thought was his former Liverpool teammate, who was tragically lost in a road incident. Quansah performed Jota's gamer celebration as a tribute.

"To have a goal on your Bundesliga debut, at home, after the opening moments, is certainly a rollercoaster," Quansah says. "However, my dominant emotion was that it was a homage to Diogo."

Initial Struggles

The defender could have been excused for questioning what he had signed up for at Leverkusen. From the promising start in their first league game, they succumbed to a narrow loss and the following game on 30 August was equally disappointing. Ten Hag's team squandered 2-0 and 3-1 leads to finish level at their reduced opponents, the equaliser coming in added time. It was no longer his responsibility for very long. He was sacked on September 1st.

Staying Focused

Quansah doesn't appear to be the kind to worry. If calmness defines his game, it was on show during the conversation he participated in after being selected for England for the international friendly against their rivals and the qualifying match against their next opponents.

Quansah has kept his head down under the current coach, the Danish tactician, and continued to do what he originally planned to do at the club – compete. The new manager has established consistency. His squad have positive results in four league matches along with ties in each of their Champions League ties. But there is a more significant number that encourages Quansah, even bringing a sense of justification. It is the one which shows he has played every minute of the team's season.

National Team Attention

It is one that the England head coach has noted. The national team manager was a fan last season, selecting Quansah when he announced his initial selection. After leaving him out in the summer so that Quansah could focus on the youth tournament, he gave him a last-minute inclusion in September when John Stones was forced to withdraw.

Still to win his international debut, Quansah must have impressed sufficiently in training and within the squad environment because he was named at the outset in Tuchel's 24‑man group for Wales and Latvia, essentially as a fifth centre-back with the regular starter returning. The dream is a debut. It is another thing he would certainly take in his stride.

Decision Making

"With my new club, the club were keen on signing me for a while and that's not only from the coach," Quansah explains. "They were interested prior to his arrival. So knowing it was a sort of internal decision and nothing would change with which manager was to come in ... it was easy for me to choose this path.

"We had a lot of players leaving and it's always tough when you see important figures leave. It has been tough to establish new hierarchies but the results we have had recently demonstrate that we have developed a competitive team with talented individuals. It is requiring patience to develop and we are not where we want to be. But if we are achieving positive outcomes and avoiding defeats that is a good place to begin from."

Liverpool Departure

It had to have been a difficult separation for Quansah to leave his long-time club, his club from the age of five, where he enjoyed so many memorable moments – such as the Carabao Cup final victory over their London rivals in the previous season when he was introduced as an late replacement.

Quansah was also a part of the previous campaign's domestic championship success. Yet his view of most of that achievement was not the one he would have preferred. He was an non-playing reserve on multiple matches in the competition, his four starts and nine appearances comparing unfavourably with his statistics from 2023‑24 when he started nine games.

Professional Growth

"I consistently developed off top-level professionals around me at my former club and it's been so good for my professional development," he comments. "But as a young centre-back, you need games and I'm going to be needing hundreds of games to be at my desired level.

"My primary desire was game time and when you are at a team like Liverpool, it's not guaranteed because there are elite performers all over the pitch. I wanted somewhere where they can trust that I could errors at certain moments but they will see beyond that and see I can continue developing and improving."

Early Experience

Quansah remembers his temporary transfer to League One Bristol Rovers in the second-half of 2022-23 where he made his first senior appearances – 16 of them, to be precise. There were "numerous wake-up calls", he notes with a grin, starting with his debut; a heavy loss at Morecambe.

"That represented a genuine revelation," Quansah reflects. "It was a really valuable chapter in my development because I wanted to make the next step to regular senior competition. Every game I learned something new. That's where I understood how valuable experience and match practice was. You could say it influenced my decision in the summer."