Jurgen Klopp decision could cement Curtis Jones as first-team star

Add as preferred source on Google

Jurgen Klopp can cement Curtis Jones as a first-team star with a decision today. The Liverpool boss is set to rotate heavily against FC Midtjylland.

Today’s UEFA Champions League game will be a strange one. Liverpool are already through as group winners, after all, while Midtjylland are out.

The intense schedule will affect things, too. Liverpool have a lot of games coming up while dealing with an injury crisis.

It makes the game the ideal time to rotate. Jurgen Klopp can leave out most of the stars and give himself as fresh a team as possible heading into the Christmas period.

Exactly who he leaves out will be telling, too. And if Klopp leaves out Curtis Jones, it’ll suggest the teenager is a first-team player now.

26 games

Jones has only played 26 times for Liverpool. That’s in all competitions and this time a year ago, that figure stood comfortably under ten.

It’s been a rapid rise for the Scouser, then. He’s playing week-in, week-out thanks to the injury crisis and establishing himself.

And Jones will get one serious nod of approval today if Klopp leaves him out of the Midtjylland game. It would suggest that Jones is a player the boss wants fresh and that he fully intends to use him over the next month.

That would be despite the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Naby Keita and James Milner all being close to fitness. Thus Jones being a part of the first-team says that those senior pros are his competition.

That would be, in some ways, the biggest compliment paid to Jones so far. It’s easy to forget that this is still his first full senior season and that he’s massively inexperienced.

But in leaving him out of the XI, Klopp can tell Jones that he’s fully a first-team player now.