Curtis Jones: A Key Player for Liverpool Under Iraola

Andoni Iraola has been Liverpool manager for only a matter of days, but he has already drawn a firm line in the sand over one of the club’s most debated players. Curtis Jones, entering the final year of his contract and circling transfer rumour columns all summer, is a footballer Iraola does not intend to lose.

The new head coach did not dress it up. He did not sound like a man preparing for life without the midfielder. Asked about Jones at his introductory press conference, Iraola was clear: he rates him “very highly”, calls him a “great, great player” and wants him at Liverpool “not only for this year but for more time”.

For a player whose Anfield story has never quite settled, those words matter.

A future in the balance

Jones’ situation is simple on paper and complicated in reality. He is 25. He has made 228 first-team appearances for Liverpool. He has lived the dream of a local lad breaking through at Anfield. Yet he has never truly been the first name on the team sheet.

Across the last two Premier League seasons, he has started just under half of Liverpool’s league games. Important, but not indispensable. Trusted, but not untouchable. That sort of halfway house is precisely what tends to trigger contract stand-offs.

Inter Milan have already tested Liverpool’s resolve with two bids, both rejected. Reports in Italy then claimed Nottingham Forest had reached an agreement to sign him, a move that would have dragged Jones from the Champions League nights of his childhood club into a very different kind of fight in the Premier League.

The player’s response? A raised eyebrow emoji on social media. No statement, no long explanation. Just a hint of disbelief at the noise around his name and a public dismissal of the Forest talk.

Iraola plants his flag

Behind the scenes, the new manager is wasting no time. Iraola confirmed he would speak to Jones on Monday, his first real chance to look the midfielder in the eye and outline his vision.

The appeal is obvious. Jones is not just another squad player to Iraola. He is “very important”, a homegrown midfielder who understands the club and the city. The fact that he is Scouse is no small detail in the manager’s mind. In a dressing room that has evolved and internationalised over the years, local voices still carry a particular weight.

Iraola also pointed repeatedly to the need for depth. Liverpool expect to compete on multiple fronts again, and that demands a bench full of players who can step in without a drop in level. Letting a 25-year-old with Jones’ experience walk out of the door now, just as he enters what should be his peak years, would run against everything the new head coach has been stressing.

He wants runners. He wants intensity. He wants character. From the outside, he sees those traits in Jones.

The decision now sits with Jones

There is, of course, another side to this. Liverpool can want to keep him. Iraola can talk him up. The club can reject bids and stress his importance. None of that guarantees a signature on a new deal.

Jones has every reason to pause. He has grown up at Liverpool, yet has never been fully established as an automatic starter. He has watched others arrive, claim roles, and sometimes move on again. At 25, he must decide whether he believes this new regime will finally give him the central role he has been chasing, or whether his career needs a reset elsewhere.

What Iraola offers is clarity. No mixed messages, no lukewarm praise. Publicly, he has placed Jones at the heart of his plans and challenged the club to keep him “for more time”. Privately, he now has to sell that vision to a player who has heard promises before.

Liverpool have turned away suitors. The manager has made his stance plain. The city still sees one of its own in the No. 17 shirt.

The next move belongs to Curtis Jones.