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"From the outside, it seems insane," Jarell Quansah says, as he reflects on his recent summer, when dizzying change felt like a constant. "But it is one of them ... football is a crazy game."

A Brief Summary

Shortly after winning the U21 European Championship with the English national team at the end of June, Quansah opted to depart from his childhood club, to go to the Bundesliga side in a multi-million pound transfer.

The significant transfer sum brought big pressure as the 22-year-old was charged with finding his feet in a foreign land and at a team where the churn was substantial. The new manager had taken over to succeed the previous coach and a number of star performers were gone or going – chief among them several high-profile names, key squad members, Jeremie Frimpong, Amine Adli, Granit Xhaka, Lukas Hradecky and team leaders.

Bundesliga Debut

Quansah's Bundesliga debut came on August 23rd at home to Hoffenheim and the centre-half scored after five minutes, albeit the achievement was undercut by sadness. All he could think about was his former Liverpool teammate, who was tragically lost in a road incident. Quansah executed his teammate's signature celebration as a tribute.

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

Early Challenges

The player could have been excused for questioning what he had signed up for at Leverkusen. After the encouraging beginning in their first league game, they succumbed to a 2-1 defeat and the next match on 30 August was equally disappointing. The squad squandered 2-0 and 3-1 leads to draw 3-3 at 10-man Werder Bremen, the equaliser coming in stoppage time. It was not Ten Hag's team for much longer. His dismissal came on September 1st.

Staying Focused

Quansah does not come across as the kind to worry. If composure characterizes his playing style, it was evident during the conversation he gave after joining England for the international friendly against their rivals and the World Cup qualifier against their next opponents.

Quansah has kept his head down under the new Leverkusen manager, Kasper Hjulmand, and continued to do what he always intended to do at the club – compete. The new manager has established consistency. His team have three wins and one draw in four league matches along with ties in each of their European matches. But there is a more significant number that motivates the player, even bringing a sense of justification. It is the one which shows he has been ever-present of the team's season.

National Team Attention

It is one that the England head coach has observed. The national team manager was a fan previously, selecting Quansah when he announced his initial selection. After omitting him in June so that Quansah could focus on the Under-21 European Championship, he provided him with a late call-up in the autumn when the experienced defender was compelled to pull out.

Yet to earn his first cap, Quansah must have done something right in training and within the squad environment because he was selected at the outset in Tuchel's squad selection for Wales and Latvia, essentially as a additional defensive option with Stones fit again. The aspiration is a first appearance. It is one more milestone he would certainly take in his stride.

Career Choices

"With my new club, the club were keen on signing me for a while and that's not just from the coach," Quansah explains. "They were interested prior to his arrival. So understanding it was a type of organizational choice and things would remain consistent 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 lose key players. It has been tough to build the leadership groups but the outcomes we have had [under Hjulmand] show that we have developed a competitive team with talented individuals. It is going to take time to build and we are still progressing. But if we are achieving positive outcomes and not losing that is a solid foundation to begin from."

Leaving Childhood Club

It had to have been a wrench for Quansah to leave his long-time club, his team since childhood, where he experienced so many memorable moments – such as the league cup triumph over Chelsea in the previous season when he came on as an extra-time substitute.

Quansah was also a part of the previous campaign's Premier League title triumph. Yet his view of most of that achievement was not the perspective he would have chosen. He was an non-playing reserve on 25 occasions in the league, his four starts and nine appearances comparing unfavourably with his statistics from the prior season when he started nine games.

Career Development

"I've always learned off some of the best players around me at Liverpool and it's been so good for my career," he comments. "But as a young centre-back, you require match experience and I'm will require hundreds of games to be where I want to be.

"My primary desire was game time and when you are at a team like Liverpool, it's not promised because there are world-class players throughout the squad. I wanted somewhere where they can trust that I could errors at times but they will look under that and see I can keep pushing and improving."

Foundation Building

Quansah recalls his loan to the lower division club in the later part of that season where he debuted at professional level – 16 of them, to be exact. There were "multiple reality checks", he says with a grin, beginning with his first game; a heavy loss at their opponents.

"That was a true eye-opener," Quansah says. "It was a really valuable chapter in my development because I aimed to take the next step to regular senior competition. Every game I learned something new. That's when I understood how valuable experience and match practice was. You could say it informed my decision in the off-season."