When Liverpool spent £145 million to rebuild their midfield this summer, many expected Curtis Jones to be a player left out of Jurgen Klopp’s squad.
Curtis Jones ended last season quite excellently, but this season the story will be very different because the talent developed from Liverpool’s training academy needs to do everything to compete for a position in the midfield. adding quality names like Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo, and Ryan Gravenberch.
However, Curtis Jones still seems quite confident when in an interview with The Athletic in April, he said: “The club’s aggressive spending does not confuse me. I am a confident and confident person. I always believe I can succeed in a place like Liverpool.”
And indeed, Jones did what he said. He accepts competition with the quality names mentioned above and is playing an indispensable role in Jurgen Klopp’s work of building “Liverpool 2.0”.
Rested for the midweek Europa League match against LASK, the 22-year-old was used alongside Mac Allister and Szoboszlai in the match against West Ham last weekend. A match that Liverpool won as easily as they have so often this season.
Curtis Jones had a very impressive match in the left midfielder position. After 77 dynamic minutes on the field, Jones left the field and received enthusiastic praise from the home fans.
Regularly finds space to receive the ball from the central defenders, is strong when blocking opponents, and is very alert in sudden situations. Jones had very good minutes in the match against West Ham when he had 49/51 (96%) successful passes.
There was some concern for Curtis Jones when he lay down holding his ankle in the first half, but with his own determination, he returned just a few seconds later to continue arguing with Jarrod Bowen. Looking at Jones’s passionate fighting image, the stands at Anfield seemed to be energized to cheer more enthusiastically for the players.
Curtis Jones also almost got his own goal in the recent match against West Ham, but unfortunately, his escape to receive a pass from Szoboszlai at the end of the first half fell into an offside position. In addition to that clear opportunity, Jones also made goalkeeper Alphonse Areola have to play hard in another shooting situation in the second half.
In Liverpool’s last 17 unbeaten matches, Curtis Jones started 14 of them. That number could have been even higher if he had not suffered an ankle injury at the beginning of the season.
Jones’ strong resurgence started with the match at Stamford Bridge in April when Jurgen Klopp gave him his first chance to start after 6 months of waiting. And in response to that belief from the head coach, Curtis Jones has made strong progress until the future.
Curtis Jones recently became the second player after Trent Alexander-Arnold to pass through Liverpool’s training system to reach the first team. Both are members with over 100 appearances for Liverpool since the former captain. Legend at Anfield is Steven Gerrard.
Stephen Warnock (67 matches), Martin Kelly (62 matches), Jay Spearing (55 matches), and Jon Flanagan (51 matches) are among the talents promoted to the first team but they cannot reach that milestone like Jones and Arnold.
The fact that Curtis Jones was able to reach that milestone in an era when Liverpool won many titles makes it even more noteworthy.
However, the journey to playing in Liverpool’s first team was not without difficulties for Curtis Jones. He also had difficulty making his debut at the age of 17 in the match against Wolves in the FA Cup and it took him quite a while to find his own impressive goal in the match against Everton that same season.
A bizarre ankle injury suffered during training has slowed Curtis Jones’ career progress somewhat in the 21/22 season. Next, problems with his shin bone last year also forced Jones to stay away from the field for quite a long time.
But fortunately, everything is over now. Curtis Jones is now healthy again and the guy is ready to compete doing what he does best. Klopp and his assistants worked with Jones to help him pass the ball faster and make more decisive and accurate decisions.
Curtis Jones was one of the members of the England U21 team that won the European Championship in July, receiving man-of-the-match awards in both the semi-finals and final of the tournament. At this time, it can be said that “prodigy” Curtis Jones is taking the first steps to develop his full potential.
Quickly developing his own potential helps Curtis Jones a lot when playing with high-class midfielders like Mac Allister and Szoboszlai.
Liverpool now has a midfield that plays really aggressively in every match. It’s a completely different image than what they had and showed last season.
Szoboszlai had more touches of the ball than any other player in the match against West Ham (104 times). The Hungarian player has a passing accuracy rate of up to 93% (81/87), including 4 decisive passes to teammates. In terms of regaining control of the ball, Szboszlai (9) is only inferior to defender Andy Robertson (10).
The influence on Mac Allister’s playing style does not need to be commented too much after the Argentine player has fully recovered his physical strength since returning from the national team camp. During the match, Mac Allister completed 86 passes out of 90 attempts. The player born in 1998 also has quite impressive statistics of regaining control of the ball with 8 successes. The clearest highlight of the World Cup champion that everyone must remember is the perfectly accurate assist for Nunez to help the Uruguayan striker score the goal to increase the score to 2-1.
Speaking after the match, Klopp now seems somewhat assured about the system he is rebuilding for Liverpool: “Darwin has made great strides in the past few weeks. He is a real threat to the opponent. Everyone must have seen that goal, right? It looked quite impressive, right? Actively retreating to defense is now probably the main difference in Nunez’s playing style. He always wants the ball to take advantage of his abilities. That seems even easier now that the team has found other ways to do it around Nunez. And the dynamism of Curtis and Dom helps a lot in this cause.”
Klopp’s Liverpool is now on the way to rebuilding a new squad with the elements that the German strategist recruited to Anfield. They are on the rise and Curtis Jones is also part of Liverpool’s rise.