Liverpool were at a crossroads last summer after falling by the wayside across a challenging 2022/23 campaign, facing the ominous unknown after failing to qualify for the Champions League with a fifth-place Premier League finish.
A late-stage purple patch did spark hope back into the red half of Merseyside, with the sapped midfield expected to undergo heavy transformation after reaching the end of its battery.
Sweeping changes were made and now the Reds are marching toward success once more, with Jurgen Klopp’s masterful work in the transfer market rekindling the club’s stature and ability to contest the almost-infallible Manchester City for the league crown.
Liverpool are top of the table; the Carabao Cup final looms, Chelsea seeking a resurgence of their own; soon after Anfield will host second-tier Southampton in the FA Cup and Klopp’s side are favourites to triumph in the Europa League.
Much is changing at the club and Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch have refashioned the engine room into a silverware-chasing machine, but while many struggling stars were shipped on, some have remained to continue their journey.
Harvey Elliott is a quality talent and offers creativity like none other, while Thiago Alcantara, always-injured he may be, remains and there is hope that the silky Spaniard will grace the pitch before season’s end.
Curtis Jones, who is starting to shine as one of Klopp’s most important cogs, might just be the pick of the bunch though, criminally underrated and ever-improving in the Liverpool midfield.
Cast back to January 2020. Liverpool were thriving as Champions League winners, en route to Premier League glory after a jaw-dropping start to the season.
Jones was yet to wedge his way into Klopp’s plans with regularity but he did announce himself as a future star under the Anfield lights, curling in an absolute peach against Everton in the FA Cup third round to send his side through.
Fast track to the present and the Englishman has amassed 125 senior appearances for Liverpool, scoring 16 goals and supplying 14 assists, having won a host of major honours.
Said to have “all the attributes of a top player” by former captain Jordan Henderson, Jones was fielded as an attacking midfielder throughout his youth but has since been moulded into a technically proficient and controlled centre-midfielder, with an intelligent approach and crisp passing to provide the metronomic fluency in the centre of the park.
Last year, with Liverpool struggling for form, Jones was blemished by the injury problems that have hindered him throughout much of his fledgling phase on Merseyside, but the 23-year-old came into his own in the late phase and started each of Liverpool’s final 11 matches in the top-flight.
Jones scored three goals and placed an assist during this excellent turnaround that salvaged Europa League football and set the framework for this year’s exploits, and he is now thriving at the core of the Anfield side’s success.
