‘Could end up better than Gerrard’ – Liverpool star solves glaring Arne Slot issue with record stat
Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version from talkSPORT or go back to LFC Live.
Curtis Jones has finally started delivering on Adrian Durham's bold comparison to Steven Gerrard after a record-breaking night.The 24-year-old fittingly commanded a leadership role at Liverpool a week on from the 22nd anniversary of his idol becoming captain.Adrian Durham makes sensational claim that Curtis Jones could become a better player for Liverpool than legendary Steven GerrardJones is just one year older than former England star Gerrard was when he was given the armband at Anfield on October 15, 2003.That season was the first in which Opta started collecting data, and two decades on, Jones has achieved a unique feat for a Reds player.Jones sets Liverpool passing recordThe midfielder was instrumental in his boyhood club ending their four-game losing streak during a 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.Jones completed 122 out of the 127 passes he attempted at the Deutsche Bank Park — 98 of which were also forward passes.read more on liverpoolIn total, it is the highest number a Liverpool player has managed in the Champions League on record.Ahead of the game, Dominik Szoboszlai had been leading the club's stats for most completed passes per 90 minutes, averaging just 58.Jones' heroics came on only his fourth start of the season, as he partnered the Hungarian in Arne Slot's new-look 4-4-2 system.The six-cap England international admitted post-match that his plan to get Liverpool back firing involved the team playing through him.Alexis Mac Allister has struggled for form, Szoboszlai has had to play as a makeshift right-back, and Ryan Gravenberch is now injured.6Jones set a Liverpool passing record in the Champions League6The midfielder has unlocked a whole new side of the gameJones inspired Liverpool to end losing runSpeaking to LFCTV, he said: “I’ve been saying it for a couple of weeks, our games feel as if they are basketball games, it’s end-to-end a lot.“I’ve come in the team and the thing in my mind is I want to get on the ball. I want the team to play through me.“I can dominate a game if I’ve got the ball a lot, and I have Dom alongside me, who is comfortable on the ball as well.
He added: “I’m a Scouser, so I feel that the four games that we lost, it hurt me more than those lads.“I’m not saying it didn’t affect them, but I’m a fan from a kid, so I made sure that tonight I just run first of all, I tried to bring an energy in the team that the lads had to go and press. I was vocal more on the pitch, I made sure that we came away with a win.”6‘Jones could end up being BETTER than Gerrard’It's been nearly five years since another of Jones' Champions League triumphs, which talkSPORT's Durham made the outlandish claim.The-then 19-year-old had just scored his first-ever goal in UEFA's elite competition to secure a 1-0 win over Ajax at Anfield without fans.talkSPORT pundit Gabby Agbonlahor was so impressed with the teen’s performance that he backed Jones to make himself ‘undroppable’ in the Liverpool team, saying he could keep Thiago Alcantara and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain out of the Reds XI.But Durham took it one further, by infamously predicting: “Curtis Jones could end up being better than Gerrard.6Jones now sports the No.
The word to sum it up, swagger, that’s what Curtis Jones has got.“I say it a bit tongue in cheek that he could end up being better than Gerrard, but we don’t know, he COULD end up being better than Gerrard!“I don’t ever think Steven Gerrard was as confident when he was a youngster in the first team at Liverpool; if you read his book, he says he wasn't confident at all and he didn’t have any idea he was going to have the career he had.“There are questions to be asked about whether he can keep a place in the Liverpool first team… but as a teenager, he’s got six first-team goals - as a teenager, Gerrard only got one!“It may be that Jones gets nowhere near the career Steven Gerrard had, but he’s already got a Premier League medal…”6Gerrard himself took aim at the FA for taking too long to spot what he had as a coachCredit: InstagramJones explained how Gerrard helped his riseA struggle to cement himself in Liverpool's first-choice starting XI since that win over Ajax that Durham's prediction has fallen flat.However, the comparisons between the two players extend beyond the talkSPORT host, with Gerrard once Jones' youth coach at Anfield.The former even stated that Jones was more talented than him technically, having said the FA should be ‘fined’ for waiting so long to bring him into the senior international fold in November 2024.“I say it now, still, I feel like Steven was the one who came in and made me really think, ‘Look, if I lock all the way in, now I can go to the top,'” Jones explained on the We Are Liverpool podcast 12 months earlier.6Gerrard's influence played a vital part in Jones' rise through the ranks“I’ll never forget the time, we’d been away on pre-season – I don’t know what country it was – we came back and he got the whole team in on a one-to-one and he’d been speaking about the things you did well and what you needed to improve.“I remember when he came in – I don’t want to say what he said – it was good but it was not nice. It was like the harsh truths.“I’ll say a little bit: ‘I gave you the 10 shirt on your back because I want you to be my main lad in my team and I want to build the team around you, but you didn’t show enough”.“There was a game that he said, this is was what stuck in my head a lot – where I wanted to show him that anything you need from me I’ll do it – we’d been beaten by Fulham and he said I’d been tackled and the lad had stood over and said something while I’d been on the floor.“He turned around to me and said, ‘What did you do about it?!’ I said, ‘I can’t remember’, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, you did nothing!’Read More on talkSPORT“I sat there and thought, ‘you’re right’.