Simon Hughes has suggested that adding more goals to his game “would have added weight to the argument” that Curtis Jones should feature more regularly for the Liverpool first-team.
The youngster showed considerable promise this term, taking advantage of the disarray caused by long-term injuries to Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez to cement himself in the midfield.
“I think he’s [Jones] had a quieter back end to the season but I think he did well in those earlier months up until Christmas and is showing enough promise to suggest he can become a mainstay in the midfield,” the Liverpool journalist spoke on The Athletic’s The Red Agenda podcast.
“He probably needs to add a few goals to his game.
“I know the Liverpool midfield’s responsibility aren’t primarily goalscoring but I think he does get into some really good positions and could have had a few more goals, which would have added weight to the argument that he should be in the team a lot more often.”
Having enjoyed such a promising start to the season, it’s clear that there’s a lot on offer from the 20-year-old.
With us having suffered for goals up top, however, an added goal threat from the middle of the park would have been highly valuable whilst the form of Sadio Mane and Bobby Firmino was thrust under the microscope.
Understandably, of course, it’s not an area we’ve traditionally relied for goals under Jurgen Klopp, with our famous front-three usually supplying efforts aplenty in prior campaigns.
Nonetheless, as the German seeks the next step of his side’s ongoing evolution, it could very well be an area that he explores going forward in the transfer market and, through coaching, with Jones an ideal candidate to mould into a more offensive force going forward.