This weekend's Blood Red column from our Liverpool FC correspondent Paul Gorst focuses on Curtis Jones' £30m transfer to Inter
Curtis Jones is bringing to an end his 20-year stay with Liverpool to sign for Inter
Curtis Jones is bringing to an end his 20-year stay with Liverpool to sign for Inter
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Six years ago, fresh from a minor role in Liverpool becoming Premier League champions with 99 points, Curtis Jones spoke effusively about the feeling that his time was nearing.
In a Zoom chat with the ECHO as part of Nike's brand new partnership with the Reds in July of 2020, Jones couldn't hide his excitement as to what the future had in store for him after an unforgettable few months on the fringes of Jurgen Klopp's squad.
"I can't wait until it is my turn to be in the team and I am winning games with the club," he said. "I want to become a legend in this city myself."
As he prepares to say goodbye to the club he has been associated with for nearly 20 years, how best to judge whether he leaves, in his own words, as a legend in this city?
In many ways, the city-centre-born Jones will feel it is mission accomplished as he gets set for pastures new with another massive club in Italian giants Inter.
The honours list would back up that assertion. In his seven years in and around the first team, he won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a Club World Cup and couple of League Cups. It is the sort of haul that will be the envy of most in English football.
But despite spending his entire adult life around the Liverpool first team while winning trophies at a considerable rate, it still feels to many as though Jones, at the age of 25, is closing the Anfield chapter of his career prematurely.
Andoni Iraola, his new head coach, might count himself among those who feel Jones is jumping before being pushed.
Having talked up his hope of a new deal for the lifelong Liverpool fan in his first press conference in charge last month, Iraola on Friday reiterated his gentle disappointment that he is about to lose such a gifted midfielder.
"With Curtis, it is not official but there is an ongoing situation," Iraola said at his press conference to preview the Premier League opener at Newcastle United. "I talked to him in the first or second training.
"I value him a lot as a player, he loves this club - it was very clear since the beginning for me. But I understood that probably the outcome was going to be what it has been at the end."
Jones will earn recognition for his willingness to take on a new challenge with a young family in a different country.
And the city of Liverpool and its inhabitants will always champion one of their own thriving in their ventures in other parts of the world. In that sense, the England international will get a warm send-off after a decorated career on Merseyside.
But it still feels as though this Anfield exit has been rushed, hurried through after a relatively lean unhappy period last season.
It was back in November when Jones, fresh from a chastening 4-1 defeat at home to PSV in the Champions League, spoke of the team being "in the s***".
It was a remarkably frank admission from someone who was seemingly desperate to stand up and be counted at a time when Arne Slot's side were on a torrid run.
"I don’t even have the words," Jones said at the time. “I’m past being angry and sad. I don’t have the words. I’m a player and a fan. I haven’t experienced a team play that bad. As of now we’re in the s*** and it needs to change."
It did change, slightly, with Jones starting seven successive games across December and early January and an unbeaten run of 13 matches steadied the ship while failing to reignite the terraces.
A place on the bench at Arsenal at the turn of 2026, however, was said to have been taken badly as Slot ended Jones's seven-game starting run. He leaves the club having rarely been a regular across his 228 appearances.
The irony, of course, is that a brand new era under Iraola might have provided Jones the firmest platform yet to regular first-team football, particularly given how enthusiastic the head coach was when asked about him last month.
But an unhappy pre-season period was punctuated by the unnecessary on-field spat with Dominik Szoboszlai and Kostas Tsimikas over the captaincy following the 1-0 win over Wrexham at New York's Yankee Stadium.
By the point, particularly given Inter's determination behind the scenes, the writing was on the wall for Jones and an association with Liverpool that began when he was just six is now over.
It feels like a sad, cold end to an otherwise fine Reds career.
And as the former pupil of St Vincent de Paul pulls on the famous black and blue of the Nerazzurri this week, perhaps only he can answer if does in fact depart as a legend in this city.