Liverpool have been ROBBED of a world-class player

Liverpool will rue bad luck that has robbed the of a world-class player. All could correct itself, however.

Curtis Jones is enjoying a bit of a breakout season at Liverpool. Breakout in the sense that he's finally establishing himself as a key member of the team.

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Jones has featured regularly under Arne Slot in both deeper and attacking midfield roles. Both suit him, too, and we've seen performances against some of the world's best teams in each.

Of course, he's been a part of an elite midfield. Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai have all been sensational this season. Wataru Endo has played his role perfectly on top of that as the Reds' end-of-game destroyer.

The overall environment has allowed all of the players to thrive. It's Jones who has seen the biggest jump in reputation, though - he's become an international and now finds himself compared to players in their prime.

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In truth, though, this has been a long time coming and the 24-year-old is simply living up to his potential. Liverpool, after all, really should have made a world-class player out of him by now.

Curtis Jones's injury record

Jones first broke into the first-team some time ago - during the Reds' last title-winning campaign, in fact. He featured in six matches and appeared set to take a big jump.

And he did, in a way. Jones featured in 24 Premier League matches but that number is misleading. If you tally up his minutes, Jones played around the equivalent of 13 matches. That's fewer than Nat Phillips managed, who only started playing with any regularity after the transfer window.

It's even fewer than Jordan Henderson, too - and he was ruled out from around February.

This has been the unfortunate pattern with Jones. He followed that campaign with just 15 appearances and minutes that totalled just nine matches. In 2022-23 they totalled 11 matches, last season 13 again.

The real problem is that whenever Jones really gets going, an injury pops up. A large number of his appearances are Liverpool working him back from those injuries as a result, which leads to limited minutes.

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And that's incredibly frustrating because when Jones is really at his best and playing regularly, he's absolutely brilliant. Pep Lijnders put him in England's most complete midfield ahead of Euro 2024 - and we'd agree.

He's proving himself to be brilliantly adept in Slot's system, too. No Premier League midfielder (with more than 200 passes) has a better success rate in the final third than Jones this season, per Whoscored.

The Scouser does the things Slot wants. No Liverpool midfielder averages more progressive passes than Jones. No Liverpool player has a better take-on success rate who averages at least one attempt per 90.

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He has the most goals he's achieved in a Premier League season and the most assists. This is Jones's best season yet - and it shouldn't be a surprise that it's coming in the first season where he's playing regularly.

Jones is about 60 minutes away from the most he's ever played in a Premier League season. It's led to his progressing and contributing on a higher level - and it's a massive shame that it's taken this long.

Injuries have robbed Jones of a proper trajectory and we have no doubt that he'd be considered a world-class player right now if he's been allowed to develop in line with his peers. The relief is that he just seems to have been delayed, rather than beaten.

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