Jürgen Klopp can still unleash top Liverpool talent as unwanted label ignores midfield reality

There always has to be at least one divisive Liverpool player that no one can agree on. For a long while, it was Naby Keïta, until this season, when the Guinean is yet to play a minute. His absence has turned attention elsewhere. For a long time before that, it was Jordan Henderson, who eventually turned the tide of opinion and became the first Liverpool captain in three decades to hold aloft a league trophy.

 Now, though, a new name has the unwanted title of being Liverpool's most divisive man: Curtis Jones has taken on the mantle. Jones has experienced a number of injury issues over the past 18 months or so, with a freak eye problem limiting his impact last season and halting the rhythm in his young career. Some supporters have been frustrated by a perceived lack of progression; others appreciate the level that Liverpool are at, and the difficulties of coming into that sort of team.

 Still only 21, the expectations around what Jones is as a player are still murky. He might have come through as a player who scored and assisted regularly for Liverpool's youth sides, but has since become something closer to Gini Wijnaldum — a safety-first midfielder whose task in the Reds' midfield is an exceptionally tough one, with so many jobs simultaneously required.

On Tuesday night, he was given a chance in a position that he is more used to (or at least, the one with which he grew up). Deployed on the left-hand side of the field, higher up the pitch than most of his senior Liverpool appearances have come, he helped his side hold onto the ball and delivered a steady, if not spectacular, display.

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In the stands at Anfield, however, there were frequent murmurs of discontent and frustration. Jones does have a tendency to hold onto the ball for too long at times, but even when that is the right decision, the confirmation bias audibly present cannot help his confidence.

Much of the frustration stems from Jones not being one of the injured duo Luis Díaz and Diogo Jota, or the now-departed Sadio Mané, but Jones is just not that type of player. Like Harvey Elliott, his skillset is a creative one, when he is fully allowed to express himself, but he is not bursting with pace and acceleration.

His backheeled pass against Napoli was a sign of the kinds of trickery that he possesses, with a through-ball or a shot a more likely outcome than him dribbling around three defenders or carrying the ball the length of the field on a counter. Against Spurs this weekend, Jones can be a valuable asset in keeping hold of the ball, just as he was against a relatively similar side in the Italians earlier in the week.

Can Curtis Jones become the next Liverpool great?

 He might not be a new signing, but he still offered plenty. Jones may never be the first name on the Liverpool teamsheet and he might only ever be a squad player at Anfield, but most academy graduates of any club don't make it that far.

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"Any time I play I’m enjoying it," Jones said after the Napoli game, via Liverpool's official website. "I’ll play anywhere, I’m one of them. Say somebody had picked up a knock and I had to fill in at the back then I’d play there and I wouldn’t complain. Since my Academy days I’ve always been an attacking kid, I’ve always said that I like to score goals and I like to create and stuff.

“The role had changed a bit but today I was back out there on the left in a position that I love and that I’ve played a lot. It was good, it was a good game.” His talent and versatility is, at the very least, a useful asset to have in Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool squad. On Sunday, there is a good chance of him keeping his place in the starting XI.