Ever since Reds legend Georginio Wijnaldum left Liverpool at the end of his contract in 2021, multiple players have been hailed as a possible heir.
But as it turns out, the closest match, in the sense of being simultaneously important and often overlooked, is a player some feared would lose his place in the wake of the club’s spending spree.
Curtis Jones put together a career-best run of starts and performances at the back end of last season, but Mac Allister looked set to replace him as the first-choice option in the advanced number eight role on the left side. Up to this point, though, Jürgen Klopp has actually favored the Argentine as a number six, meaning Jones has been able to hold down his place in the side.
Like Wijnaldum, who had been directly involved in 87 goals during his time in the Eredivisie and 16 during his solitary season at Newcastle, Jones was expected to be a goalscorer and a playmaker after coming through the academy as an attacking midfielder and winger.
Across 60 games in the U18 Premier League and Premier League 2, Jones had netted 26 times and set up 11 more, but as a 22-year-old, you can no longer judge him on his offensive output.
Despite playing 255 minutes of top-flight football so far this season, Jones has only recorded two touches in the opposition penalty area — as many as center-back Ibrahima Konaté, and fewer than Gravenberch, who has only made two brief substitute appearances so far, and Joe Gomez (both three)
Jones is averaging 20.7 touches per 90 minutes in the attacking third as a whole, but this is still considerably fewer than opposite number eight Szoboszai (25.2), who should be aiming for double figures for both goals and assists.
The early signs suggest Jones won’t get close to those marks — he’s only attempted two shots thus far, as many as Gomez and Joël Matip — but this isn’t necessarily what’s expected.
One of Jones’ primary responsibilities is ball retention. He ranks in the 97th percentile among positional peers in the big five leagues and UEFA competitions over the past year for passing accuracy (90.5 per cent), and has only lost possession 6.5 times per game on average this season, fewer than 10 of his teammates.
To achieve this, Jones is typically quite safe with his passes — he places in the 91st percentile for short passes completed, but only the 69th for medium-length passes and the 16th for long balls — but he does circulate it swiftly. As reported by The Athletic, Klopp and his staff have worked with the youngster ‘on moving the ball quicker’ at the training ground.
Jones can be brave in possession too, slotting into the 82nd percentile for progressive carries per 90 minutes (2.2), but he’s very wary about taking unnecessary risks.
Off the ball, his defensive work rate is excellent, as evidenced by his tally of 2.78 tackles per 90 (enough to reach the 85th percentile), and he’s a particularly effective presser, making the very highest percentile for tackles in the offensive third.
These are under-the-radar responsibilities that don’t lend themselves to widespread appreciation — already there are some on social media questioning what he actually brings to the table — but they’re necessary for the team to function as a unit. Every top side needs players that make things tick without grabbing the headlines.
Besides, the numbers clearly demonstrate Jones’ value. When he’s on the pitch this season, Liverpool’s expected goal difference stands at +1.65, the best record of anybody in the squad who’s played significant minutes, and this shows that he’s helping Liverpool create high-quality chances while giving up relatively few. While the sample size for the current campaign is inescapably small, Jones was also first for this metric among the Liverpool midfielders who played at least 1,000 minutes last season.
Ultimately, this might not be the Curtis Jones that we envisioned, but it might just be the version of Jones that becomes a first-choice player for Klopp’s Liverpool long-term.