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This is not the first time Liverpool fans have been thrilled with a local talent with the number 17 on their back. For a long time, it was Steven Gerrard’s number; It wasn’t until Rafa Benítez arrived in 2004 that he switched to number 8, before becoming one of the best midfielders in the game.
Now, it’s Curtis Jones in the 17 jersey and it won’t have gone unnoticed that the 19-year-old replaced on right-back against Brighton on Saturday, a position Gerrard cut his teeth in in the early days of his Anfield career.
Too many comparisons to Gerrard could be considered unfair for a player still learning the ropes, but the little similarities are there to be acknowledged and if there is one man to accept them, it is Jones himself.
“Scouser, very confident, can’t wait to play in the first team,” a beaming Klopp said of Jones in January after his impressive FA Cup win against Everton. I’ve known him for three and a half years. He will be a Liverpool player if nothing strange happens, 100%. That he scores this goal, it doesn’t surprise me. ‘
Perhaps surprisingly, despite all the confidence Klopp said Jones has in his soccer prowess, the youngster really had to clarify how nerves had taken over in his post-match interview in that win over Everton.
A couple of times he stumbled over his words while speaking to BBC Sport on the Anfield pitch alongside Adam Lallana, to the point that some Liverpool fans praising him on Twitter for facing live cameras with a stutter.
‘Not a stutter, just nerves from being put right in the spot! Jones said in response.
There is a lot of talk about how difficult it is to enter the Liverpool first team. For Jones, that task became even more difficult this summer when Thiago Alcantara walked through the door at Melwood with a Champions League medal around his neck.
Georginio Wijnaldum also stayed, and while there is uncertainty about his future at Anfield beyond this season, his presence represented another elite talent that Jones must evict, among other things. He had no longer hidden his impatience.
“ I had a bit of a difficult time, well I wouldn’t say difficult but frustrating at times, being on the bench and then trying a bit and then on the bench, ” Jones told the BBC after Everton. , sounding nothing like a young man ready to bide his time. In my head, I’m begging to come
But despite his plethora of midfield options, Klopp never entertained the idea of Jones continuing his development on loan elsewhere this season. His path was at Anfield and Klopp had charted his route to the first team long before this season, as Ralf Rangnick, the former coach and later director of RB Leipzig, discovered.
“I asked Jurgen about Curtis two years ago, if they would send him to Leipzig on loan for a year or two, and he said no,” Rangnick, the architect of Leipzig’s rise in German soccer, told FourFourTwo in September.
Jurgen wants to stay with him. I think you know how talented you are with Curtis on your team. He is one of the most exciting young players in England today. For him, the problem is that he has a lot of top players ahead of him. The good news is that most of those young local Liverpool players don’t want to leave.
And Rangnick is right about Klopp’s belief in Jones. There is sometimes a feeling that the Liverpool manager has to restrain himself from being too effusive in his praise of the 19-year-old.
“If I was sure that I would not see my interview, I would say something else,” Klopp told BT Sport after Tuesday’s victory at Ajax. ‘What a game for a 19 year old boy. I’m very happy for him. ‘
Jones signed a new long-term contract with Liverpool in July and scored it with his first Premier League goal in a 2-0 win over Aston Villa, moments after coming on as a substitute in the 85th minute.
“This is Curtis in a nutshell: he comes onto the field and his first touch is a shot,” Klopp laughed. “He has signed a new contract, good for him and for us. We will have a lot of fun in the future. ‘
Yet despite his self-confidence, Jones has impressed Liverpool’s big stars with his work ethic. Klopp prides himself on having a squad of graders, but the desire to play hard yards is hard to teach.
“Curtis wants to get better every day,” captain Jordan Henderson said in July. And not just with a ball at your feet. In all aspects of being a professional. Sometimes I have to remind myself how young he is, because he has the physical attributes of a much more experienced player. The crucial thing now is that it continues to do exactly what it has done to get here.
“If you keep that attitude of making sure that improvement and learning are your number one focus, you can really achieve what you want.”
But everyone needs a little help along the way. While Jones wouldn’t have wished his teammates injuries, he simply wouldn’t have played as much this season if everyone had stayed in shape.
Tuesday’s winning appearance against Ajax was his eighth start of the campaign, but the 19-year-old is doing much more than filling a void. He was arguably Liverpool’s most dangerous player in the attacking third against the Dutch side – he broke the post with a shot from the edge of the box in the first half.
Perhaps for the first time in his Liverpool career, he hopes to start games and is sure to be one of the first names on the team sheet for Sunday’s tough game at home to Wolves, the first to which fans will be able to return from the first lockout. by coronavirus.
Klopp often says that one of his favorite things about soccer is that when you solve one problem, another soon rears its head. That’s precisely what Jones will do for Klopp’s long-term planning, once players like Alcantara, James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are back in shape and Fabinho can deploy in midfield once more.
But his appearance will likely have a greater impact on the Anfield songwriters than on Klopp, who will already be giving time to that selection riddle.
Liverpool fans chanted that Trent Alexander-Arnold was ‘the Scouser on the team’ before Covid kept them out of Anfield. By the time they come back in droves, that song might need an overhaul.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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