The Liverpool Academy graduate is on the brink of a move to Italian champions Inter, but what do our writers make of it?
Curtis Jones could have played his last match for Liverpool
Curtis Jones could have played his last match for Liverpool(Image: Photo by Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
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Thousands of kids across Merseyside dream of growing up to play for Liverpool, but only the select few actually get to live the dream. That's exactly what Curtis Jones has done.
Raised in Toxteth, he joined the Reds at the age of nine and made his senior first team debut in 2019 against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Third Round of the FA Cup.
Since then, the midfielder has gone on to make 228 appearances for the Reds, scoring 22 goals and winning a haul of honours that includes two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and two League Cups.
But Jones has not seemed himself in the last 12 months and with no new contract agreed heading into the final year of his current deal Serie A champions Inter are poised to end his time and Anfield and start a new chapter at the San Siro.
Is this a good deal for all parties? Our Liverpool FC ECHO writers have their say.
Paul Gorst
Having seen Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate all leave for nothing earlier this summer, it stands to reason that Liverpool would want to push back against that trend.
And keeping hold of Curtis Jones, a player who has cut an increasingly unhappy figure in recent months, would have risked seeing the midfielder become the latest to walk away as a free agent next year.
So in that sense, the deal to sell Jones for a relatively modest £30m makes sense. But only to an extent.
At this stage, Liverpool appear to have no real plans to replace Jones and are pressing ahead with their plans for Bradley Barcola and potentially another wide player before the September 1 deadline.
It could be a big opportunity for Trey Nyoni as a result but any talk of him being 'like a new signing' will only understandably rile up supporters. They will point out that the teenage midfielder was present every week last season under Arne Slot.
Of course, Nyoni has made great strides and was one of the best performers during the pre-season period but allowing Jones to leave without sourcing a senior replacement is perhaps not the wisest of moves.
Would Jones be more valuable to Liverpool for the season ahead rather than selling him for £30m at a time when the squad already seems so stretched?
At a certain point - one we are far beyond now - Liverpool must stop allowing players to leave without seemingly any apparent plan to redress the balance with incomings.
It's all pointing towards Liverpool, and sporting director Richard Hughes in particular, being busier than they would like in the final days of the transfer window.
Liverpool's squad is far from complete, so the wisdom of letting another experienced midfield option in Jones leave for a modern-day pittance leaves more questions than answers.
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Richard Garnett
I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by the seemingly imminent departure of Curtis Jones from Liverpool, but it does leave me with mixed feelings for very different reasons.
Jones deserves credit for successfully making the jump from Liverpool Academy footballer to senior player and if he has played his last game for the club, at the age of 25, he leaves with a medal haul that plenty of higher-profile Liverpool stars didn’t come even close to achieving.
The frustration for Jones, however, will be that despite all of those lofty achievements, he has never been able to truly cement a regular starting berth under two different managers.
He can be forgiven for getting the hump over that, particularly considering how poor Liverpool were last season, but on balance, I’ve never felt that he was quite at the level to be an automatic starter, so find myself siding with the team selectors in that respect.
With no new contract agreed heading into his final year, this very much had an inevitability about it. Liverpool can’t afford to lose another player on a free, so cashing in now makes sense.
Where it does leave the Reds, however, is with no true senior Merseyside players in the team whatsoever. In the modern football world, many will not place much weight on that fact, but I see it differently.
For me, it is important that in what is now a global game, the team always has local representation. Otherwise, what does a club based in a particular city for over 100 years truly represent?
The club’s longstanding hardcore fanbase has always hailed the players who have made the grade from within the region and following the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold last season, Jones will leave an important vacuum to be filled.
Best of luck to him in the magnificent San Siro, but hopefully a new Scouse heartbeat will emerge sooner rather than later.