100% when I watch him he looks to be someone trying to absorb and put into actions everything being asked from him. 75% of the time it works, other times he makes a proper mess of it. As I said once he clicks properly he’s going to be a complete midfielder. As Illok said that turn of pace and releasing Salah is stuff Gini would never do, so it’s a big improvement offensively.
At half time last night he had pass accuracy of 96% which was far ahead of Fabinho/Thiago, so this line that he is somewhat constantly losing the ball is just not true. He does lose the ball, most of the time leading to a dangerous turn over but it’s like once a game, I’m cool with that as it’s all part of him learning what he can and can’t do.
Fabinho lost the ball 3 times in around 10 minutes in the first half, not a single comment about it. Jones lost it once and boom comments. He is unfairly held to some weird standards.
He lost possession once (shortly before he was subbed) and it led to a dangerous break for Inter where they could’ve scored.
Thank God they didn’t - I checked for the reaction in the pre match thread where a few had decided the time was right to crucify him over his mistake.
A real shame as he was having a really good game. We’re lucky to have him. Let’s not forget he’s only 21, and he’s cost us nothing. If it doesn’t work out no harm done in terms of any wasted transfer fee but I’ve a feeling Jurgen is going to mould him into one hell of a player during the next 2 years.
There are posters who like to get ‘likes’ by having a go at the ‘easy’ targets. Jones was the best of our midfielders and made 1 error when Fab & Thiago made more.
Every player loses the ball and in all types of scenarios, has there ever been a player playing 90 mins having 100% passing accuracy?
I said it a few times before, he plays under certain pressure (maybe self-imposed) which heavily impacts his decision making. Maybe it’s the burden of being a local lad, a fan of the club, an Academy product, of competition from Elliott or seeing AOC and Keita slowly going towards the exit door. He definitely needs to simplify his game in my opinion, this is how all of our midfielders play. This is where he excels and I think he played more such games last year than this one.
The whole team was completely flat bar a few moments of class so why Jones is singled out always amuses me. Like he’s expected to rise above the entire team being slow, sloppy and lethargic.
I think the assumption, and it’s not a terrible baseline one, is that the weaker players are the reason for the weaker performance. If your prior is Jones is not up to our level, it is easy to paint his inclusion and subsequently unimpressive performances as more cause than effect of the overall team performance.
I don’t buy that for today. I thought both Mo and Jota were significantly off the boil and bigger reasons for the lack of cutting edge, but I get the perspective.
I get where it comes from I just think it’s rubbish, He’s held to bigger standards for some reason.
Thiago for example was our best player for me and yet he still did an utter brain fart as he does every game and not a single mention. Jones skies a bouncing ball and it’s pelters.
Twice Jones was wide open due to good movement and didn’t get the ball, but it will be ignored. As you say Salah was woeful and very little discussion.
I feel for Jones he is in and out of the team, moved around… can’t help when you are trying to get a bit of consistency, which then leads to pressure and making some rushed decisions.
I have more concerns about his physical robustness than I have about his ability. I know people will point to Stevie issues and the number of games it caused him to miss when he was a kid, but 1) his development is the exception for that not the rule, 2) by the age Curtis is now he had largely overcame those issues.
I agree completely with your point, Jones definitely held to a different standard. Couldn’t agree more in fact.
And I don’t want to pit players against each other, but specifically to this point about Salah I noticed it’s very much the same with Henderson. People get very defensive or accuse others of ‘moaning’ when it’s observed Hendo isn’t playing well.
Quite a few of them are playing within themselves.
We know how good Klopp and his staff are at priming this squad to peak for particular games. I was never expecting an effervescent performance today - professional, get the job done - but I’m expecting a much better showing next weekend.
