It wasn’t the ideal set of circumstances for a 20-year-old academy graduate to make their full Premier League debut for Liverpool.

Jarell Quansah, the club’s homegrown defender from nearby Warrington, England, was thrown straight into the mix in place of the suspended captain Virgil van Dijk when Liverpool travelled to Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend.

On top of this, the team was without its other starting center-back, Ibrahima Konaté, and its star right-back and vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold.

The result, in the first half anyway, was a disorganised, scrappy performance in which Liverpool tried and failed to play the same system it uses when Alexander-Arnold is available.

Wolves took a 1-0 lead in that opening period, and Jürgen Klopp’s side looked out of sorts.

Quansah, though, was a standout player among this disorganised, hesitant performance from the more senior players around him.

He continually showed confidence to get on the ball as well as occasionally clearing up the mess at the back for Liverpool.

“It was excellent from the big man,” Liverpool captain for the day, the Scottish left-back Andy Robertson, said of Quansah.

“I don’t think many of us helped him in the first half, which, when you’ve got experienced players around, you probably look for help more.

“We tried to protect him but I think as a collective unit we weren’t as good in the first half, but he was very assured, done his defending very well and then on the ball he was cool and calm.

“He has got a bright future ahead of him but the here and now is pretty good as well and for him to step in at a really tough place to come, a really tough team to play against, and to put in that performance, particularly in the second half, then fair play to him for his first start.”

Quansah was composed throughout, even through that troublesome opening 45 minutes.

He stood out in a bad team, and then in the second half he looked entirely comfortable and completely at home as part of a really good team—one that looked like it could be a serious challenger this season.

Quansah finished the game with a pass success of 96%, the highest of any player, and a total of 91 touches.

Before he was subbed off in the 83rd minute, he had been one of the players most involved in the game for Liverpool, and it didn’t faze him.

Quansah’s involvement also demonstrated to other youth players that there is a pathway to the senior side.

What is the point in having a youth academy if none graduate to the first team?

Progress like Quansah’s is good for a club and provides hope to others lower down the age groups that they can replicate it.

If there is no obvious path, the best young players may choose to develop their skills at other clubs

The likes of Harvey Elliott, and Stefan Bajčetić are club-signed academy players whose development owes much to their previous clubs. In these cases, Liverpool serves more as a soccer finishing school for players who have already reached a certain level.

Both are now in and around the first team, especially in the case of Elliott who also spent a year on loan at Blackburn Rovers as part of his development.

Players like Curtis Jones, Alexander-Arnold and now Quansah—the club-developed academy players—are important in order to retain links to the local area and provide the club with some kind of identity in a world of all-star top-level teams.

But they have to be good enough, and in the game against Wolves Quansah showed he is, even in the most difficult circumstances.

There have been calls for Liverpool to sign reinforcements in the center of defence, but Quansah indicated why the club might have held off on doing so for now.

It will need to dip into the transfer market again when Joël Matip’s contract is up at the end of the season, but if anything, Saturday’s game showed they lack a like-for-like alternative for Alexander-Arnold on the right.

An alternative for such a unique player is difficult, though, so the change in tactics that worked so well in the second half points to a possible way forward for Liverpool in the right-back’s absence.

Signing high-profile players to walk straight into the first team can halt the progress of youth players, but at the same time, high-quality players from elsewhere in the world are needed if a team is to challenge for honours at the very top level of the game—something Liverpool is aiming to do.

Getting the balance right is important, and with Alexander-Arnold, Jones, and now Quansah, plus Elliott and Bajčetić, Liverpool has an exciting blend of young, generational talents and high-quality international players signed from abroad.

The squad is not perfect, one rarely is, but its diverse, balanced composition and resulting team spirit is itself a positive for the club and its supporters.

Quansah may not have arrived via the frenzy and clamour that surrounds the transfer market and its accompanying transfer fees, and he may be under-appreciated in some quarters as a result, but his full Premier League debut showed he could go on to be a key addition to the squad.

The gradual development and graduation of such players from within a club is just as important as the quick-fix glamour of the transfer market.