When Victor Orta picked up his mobile, flicked through his contact book and called Anfield, you’d have been forgiven for assuming a short-term spell at Leeds United was exactly what Curtis Jones required.
Jones hadn’t played a single minute in Liverpool’s first two Premier League games of the season after all, left out of the squad entirely for the 1-1 draw with Chelsea.
And if there’s one manager in the division who could be considered superior to Jurgen Klopp when it comes to youth development, he can usually be found perched on an upturned bucket a few feet from the Elland Road dugout.
In the space of two years, Marcelo Bielsa transformed Luke Ayling, Liam Cooper, Gjanni Alioski, Stuart Dallas and the enigmatic Patrick Bamford into players capable of not only surviving but thriving against the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.
Kalvin Phillips, meanwhile, resembled little more than a run-of-the-mill Championship midfielder as recently as 2018, destined to while away his days at Kenilworth Road and Ashton Gate.
Now he’s England’s player of the year and a starter in the Euro 2020 final.
Would Liverpool starlet Curtis Jones have developed faster at Leeds?
But Liverpool knew what they were doing when they rebuffed Leeds United’s advances.
Jones may have had a watching brief in the early weeks of the campaign – with Harvey Elliot apparently the new apple of Klopp’s eye – but the 20-year-old was always going to get his chance.
The question was, would he seize that opportunity when it arrived?
Jones provided an emphatic answer during Liverpool’s 5-1 Champions League thrashing of Porto last night, providing a hat-trick of assists just three days after his rocket shot almost took the Brentford net off its frame.
“Curtis played a good game – a really good game,” said Klopp at full-time, that toothy, ear-to-ear grin saying more than words ever could.
“He was everywhere, he was involved in everything. Defensively he played a top-class game. He defended really well, pressed from the blind side, a lot of things I liked about his performance tonight. So let’s keep going, Curtis, it wasn’t bad tonight.
“Curtis has been fantastic,” added Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson.
“He has matured really well. You’re starting to see what a good player he is over the last few weeks. He’s had to be a little bit patient at the start of the season but he’s come in and done fantastically well. You can see he’s got all the attributes to be a top player.”
Leeds saw that too but, more importantly for Liverpool fans, so did Klopp.
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