Goodbye Curtis Jones, Maybe We Never Knew You At All

Curtis Jones leaves Liverpool for Inter after 228 appearances, ending a complicated Anfield story and breaking the club’s last senior Scouse connection.

Someone said yesterday they would be singing “Goodbye Curtis Jones” to the tune of Candle in the Wind, and ever since, I have not been able to get the bloody thing out of my head.

Strangely, it feels quite fitting.

I am glad Liverpool have sold Curtis Jones. In truth, I think they should probably have done it last summer, when he still had two years remaining on his contract. Even then, it felt increasingly obvious that player and club had very different ideas about his role, his importance and, inevitably, what that should mean financially.

Jones leaves for Inter after 228 appearances for Liverpool, with the deal worth €30m guaranteed and potentially another €5m in add ons. Liverpool have also protected themselves with a sell on clause.

His is hardly an insignificant Liverpool career.

He came through the academy, played under Jurgen Klopp, won major honours and produced some memorable moments. Yet there was always a sense that Jones saw himself as capable of becoming something more central to Liverpool than the club ultimately believed he would be.

That tension matters.

A player entering the final years of a contract has to look at his opportunities, his salary and his place in the hierarchy. A club has to make the same judgement from the opposite direction. Liverpool clearly did not see Jones as an automatic starter or somebody around whom the midfield would be built. Jones, understandably, wanted more.

At some point, the two positions simply stop meeting in the middle.

Now We Find Out

Few Liverpool players in recent years have divided opinion quite like Curtis.

Some supporters saw a technically gifted midfielder whose progress was repeatedly interrupted by injuries and unfortunate timing. Others argued that the fact he was a Scouser earned him patience that another player might never have received.

There have even been those who have said that, without the local connection, he would be regarded as little more than a League One level footballer.

That has always felt harsh to me, although there were certainly times when the reputation and the reality seemed some distance apart.

Now we get to find out.

Serie A could suit him enormously. The game may give him a little more time on the ball, while Inter should offer the tactical structure and responsibility he has long wanted. Sometimes leaving home is exactly what a player needs to discover how good he really is.

Perhaps Curtis Jones goes to Italy and becomes a major player for one of Europe’s biggest clubs.

Perhaps Liverpool ultimately feel vindicated in allowing him to leave.

Either way, there can be no more arguments about what he might become at Anfield. That chapter is finished.

Losing Liverpool’s Local Thread

There is one part of this transfer I do find genuinely sad.

Liverpool now move forward without a single Scouser in the senior squad.

That matters to me.

Football has changed, squads are increasingly international and nobody should be given a place because of where they were born. Yet there has always been something powerful about seeing somebody from the city wearing the shirt, somebody who understands what the club means before they ever walk into the dressing room.

Jones represented that connection.

He may not have become the player some hoped he would be, but he was ours.

I was on the Chat G&G podcast with Gags Tandon last night and we spoke about Curtis, his move to Inter and plenty more besides. I have included the video below if you want to watch or listen to the wider discussion.

Ultimately, I genuinely wish Curtis well.

He wanted a bigger role. Liverpool clearly did not see that role existing for him here. At 25, this was probably the right moment for everyone to move on.

So, goodbye Curtis Jones.

And returning to the Elton John song that started all of this, perhaps the most fitting thought is the simplest one.

Maybe we never really knew you at all.