LEWIS STEELE: Jarell Quansah DOMINATED Erling Haaland in 1-1 draw with Man City to mark a rollercoaster 12 months that have seen him rise from League One loanee to Liverpool’s unlikely big game player

A year ago on Monday, Jarell Quansah played for Bristol Rovers in a 3-1 win over Forest Green in front of 4,788 punters at the New Lawn. That day, the young defender was marking journeyman striker Amadou Bakayoko.

On Sunday, Quansah played for Liverpool, a team chasing four trophies including all of the top prizes in English football, against Pep Guardiola’s Treble-winning, serial champions Manchester City. He marked, and dominated it must be said, the world’s best No 9 Erling Haaland.

No disrespect to Bakayoko, who has had to fight for his footballing career after being born in Sierra Leone and worked hard to be a professional footballer, but this comparison just underlines the seismic leaps Quansah has taken in the last 12 months.

If you had told a Liverpool fan in August that they would be above Manchester City with 10 games to go having drawn with them amid a team featuring Quansah, No 2 goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher and rookie full back Conor Bradley, they probably would have laughed.

But Quansah’s development is no joke now. He might not get the headlines that some of Liverpool’s youngsters have received this season – probably because he’s a defender not an exciting attacking player like Jayden Danns or Bobby Clark – but he deserves every plaudit.

He dominated Erling Haaland in the game to mark a terrific turnaround from his loan to Bristol Rovers last season

The 21-year-old perhaps doesn’t get the same credit as his fellow young guns Jayden Danns or Bobby Clark

That was Quansah’s 23rd appearance of the season and ninth in the Premier League, a run which started at Newcastle in August when Virgil van Dijk was sent off in the first half and Klopp turned to the 21-year-old in his hour of need.

Quansah showed Klopp then that he could be trusted in pressure moments – Liverpool were 1-0 down for much of that game before somehow snatching a victory – but none so far have been bigger than getting the nod on Sunday against the champions.

When noise from Ibrahima Konate’s camp started funnelling on to social media on Sunday morning that the French defender had not recovered from a hamstring injury in time for the visit of City, the majority of Liverpool fans remained calm because they knew of Quansah’s ability.

It is easy to describe him as a raw talent due to his age but that would be wrong. Quansah looks like he has been playing at this level for years. He has a calmness and commanding authority that belies his relatively little experience in senior football.

Quansah is progressive with his passing, is happy to run with the ball and gain yards, so ticks all the boxes of a modern defender. But he has a bit of an old-school feel to him, too – he can take a no-nonsense approach when needed, and very rarely gets caught out of position.

‘I didn’t have the perfect game, but I’m striving to be good,’ he said after the match. ‘We didn’t win the game, we didn’t keep the clean sheet, so I’m aspiring to be better.’ It is that sort of attitude that shows why he is perfect for Liverpool.

Quansah completed more passes than any Liverpool player against City, made the joint-most recoveries, and won 100 per cent of his aerial duels. Van Dijk was the best Reds player on the pitch, but his defensive colleague was not far behind.

Jurgen Klopp has relied on Quansah at times throughout the season and claimed he knew from ‘the first moment’ that he liked the youngster

The Warrington-born defender has been at Liverpool since the age of five and seasoned youth football connoisseurs say he has always bullied strikers even as a kid. Few are surprised that he has made it at the top level, but many, including Klopp, are shocked at the speed of his rise.

He has also made time to study drone footage of elite defenders, including Van Dijk, to work on the positional side of his game, and the Liverpool captain is said to have been a pivotal mentor for Quansah, both talking to him in private for advice and guiding him through games.

Given the current financial climate in football, elite-level centre backs can command price tags not far below £100million. Some clubs would have panicked and spent that money given their lack of numbers in defence. Liverpool found their man from within.

As Klopp said earlier this year: ‘I liked him from the first moment I saw him. It’s quite special how calm he is on the ball. When we saw Jarell, it was clear that we wouldn’t go for it (sign another defender last summer), we had our own solution. He’s a proper part of the squad.’