Curtis Jones has made it clear that he’s relishing the change Arne Slot is bringing to Liverpool, and this new era should be very exciting for fans too.
While his work at Feyenoord and before that AZ Alkmaar offered clues, in the months since his appointment it has been something of a mystery exactly how Slot would set his Liverpool side up.
But speaking ahead of the first official friendly of pre-season against Real Betis in Pittsburgh, Jones gave the biggest indication yet.
“I feel like my way of playing has always been a kid who wants to get on the ball and play, help the team and be comfortable on the ball,” he told reporters.
“I then came around a team who always had world-class lads out on the wing and up front, and I feel like the centre-mids were always lads who were more like runners and more disciplined, I’d say.
“Of course, the principles are the same, but I feel like now the centre-mid is going to be more like the heart of the team.
“Mo is always still going to get us goals and things like that, but in terms of our buildup and how comfortable on the ball and stuff, how calm we have to be and play more as a team, we’re not in a rush to attack.
“We kind of just want to have the ball and just break teams down, then of course that gives us a chance that, if we give the ball away, then we can go and press.
“I feel more in the past a bit it was like a rush, we get the ball back and it was a little bit too direct, I would say, and it was up and down, up and down.
“Now he wants us to have all the ball and completely kill teams.”
Jones explained that he was “probably the happiest I’ve been in terms of a style of play that suits me,” which created headlines as a supposed dig at Jurgen Klopp.
‘I’m glad he’s gone’ were the words the Mail‘s sub-editors put into the midfielder’s mouth – along with their own reporter’s – but that was far from the case.
There was no slight on Klopp, with it clear from peering into Liverpool’s trophy room that his tactics worked, more so that Jones feels more in his own skin playing Slot’s brand of football.
And he is totally correct. When Jones debuted in the Liverpool first team, Klopp relied upon a core midfield of Fabinho as his No. 6 and Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum as the two more advanced options.
With Fabinho excelling as the best defensive midfielder in the world, screening the back four with ridiculous efficiency, Henderson and Wijnaldum did the legwork ahead of him.
Even when the personnel in Klopp’s midfield changed – up to its current iteration – the roles they were required to fill rarely did.
That is due to a fundamental belief that midfield is where the ball is most often recovered, and where it could be most quickly recycled into attacks on the turnover. It is a philosophy that Klopp wore with pride from day one; counter-pressing trumps all.
Dominik Szoboszlai joined as a dynamic attacking midfielder from RB Leipzig but soon began clocking the hard yards previously expected of Henderson, while Alexis Mac Allister was thrown in at the deep end as Fabinho’s replacement at the base of midfield.
Not to forget that Wijnaldum – the gold standard for a Klopp midfielder – joined in 2016 as a goalscoring No. 10, arriving on the back of a season that saw him score four in one game for Newcastle against Norwich.
Jones himself may be the most drastic conversion project, having emerged in the academy as a dazzling left winger with a resolve to take defenders on, and after years of coaching settled into the role of steady, conservative possession-master.
Per FBref, Virgil van Dijk (91.3%) was the only Liverpool player to post a higher passing accuracy than Jones (90.8%) last season, but no midfielder played fewer progressive passes per 90 than his 5.14.
“I came around the team as a young lad and I’d always had a way of playing, and I had to adapt and change. But that was part of the plan, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t do,” Jones explained.
“But I feel this is more me. I can get on the ball more, I can do me more so I’m excited.”
Slot is unlikely to simply rip up the years of work Klopp and his staff put into honing the games of those midfielders, but the suggestion is that they will be given more freedom to express themselves.
There will be less urgency to feed the strikers, and with the head coach citing Pep Guardiola as one of his key influences, an emphasis on control can be expected instead.
“It’s a clear plan. The training, he’s fully involved, he coaches us a lot and he is big on the finest of details,” added Jones.
“He’s got a certain way of playing and he knows it’s going to take a little bit of time because it’s a big change, but him and his staff are chilled and know the quality is there.”
While Guardiola’s brand of positional play has often led Man City to be branded dull, Slot’s system is no carbon copy.
Instead, making midfield the “heart of the team” should instead make Liverpool an even more exciting proposition, with more outlets and more players capable of making a difference.
By the sounds of it, Jones stands to be one of those to benefit most, but Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, Harvey Elliott and Ryan Gravenberch should all thrive with the shackles off.
More responsibility could therefore land at the feet of Slot’s No. 6, which only underlines further that signing a new defensive midfielder to compete with Wataru Endo should be a priority this summer.
But with Jones peeling back the curtain on a new era for Liverpool under the charismatic Dutchman, there is plenty of cause for optimism.
