Curtis Jones has been at Liverpool since under-9s, and Inter are paying 30 million to end it
He is 25, in the final year of his contract, and fourth in line for two midfield places under Andoni Iraola. Inter have a hole where Davide Frattesi used to be.
Aug 21, 2026
Curtis Jones grew up in Toxteth, joined Liverpool’s academy as an under-9, and has spent every year since inside the same building. On Thursday he flew to Milan. His medical at Inter is booked for Friday, and once he passes it a £30m transfer ends the only football life he has known.
Liverpool agreed the fee late on Wednesday night. Inter had an opening offer well below it turned down before the clubs settled at around €35m, made up of roughly €30m up front and a further €5m in add-ons, with Liverpool also inserting a sell-on clause to protect themselves if he moves again.
Why Liverpool are letting a homegrown midfielder go
The contract situation did most of the work here. Jones had entered the final year of his deal, which is the point at which a club either pays up or sells, and Liverpool have chosen to sell while there is still a fee on the table. Nobody at Anfield had to be talked into the logic of that.
The football reasons are newer. Andoni Iraola replaced Arne Slot this summer after Liverpool finished fifth, and his midfield does not obviously have room for Jones. If Florian Wirtz plays as the No 10 in a 4-2-3-1, the two deeper positions are being contested by Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch. That is three established internationals for two shirts before Jones is even in the conversation.
Which is a slightly brutal outcome for a player who had stopped being a squad option. Jones played through last season as a regular and spent a good chunk of it filling in at right-back, because Liverpool needed someone to and he was the one who did not complain. Doing the unglamorous job well is not always the thing that keeps you in the team.
What he leaves with
He goes with 228 appearances and 22 goals for Liverpool, having made his first-team debut in the 2018-19 season. Two of those years ended with a Premier League title. Neither was last season, when the club came fifth and parted with the manager who had won the more recent one.
Twenty-two goals in 228 games tells you he was never the one who decided matches, and that was never really the job. Jones was the midfielder who could take the ball under pressure in his own third and still find a pass, which is worth more in a Liverpool team than the goal column suggests.
Inter keep shopping in England
Jones will be the third England international Inter have signed this window. John Stones arrived on a free at the end of July when his Manchester City contract expired, signing a two-year deal. Djed Spence followed from Tottenham for around €30m on a five-year contract, brought in to replace Denzel Dumfries after his move to Real Madrid.
The Jones deal has a specific hole to fill. Davide Frattesi went to Lazio earlier this month on a paid loan with an option to buy, which left the reigning Serie A champions a midfielder short with the season about to start. A 25-year-old with 228 games of elite European football and a year left on his contract is exactly the kind of player who becomes available at this stage of a window.
Liverpool’s timing is awkward
Iraola takes charge of his first competitive Liverpool match on Sunday, away at Newcastle. Selling a midfielder two days before the opening weekend is not the sequence any manager would design, though it does hand him a fee to spend in the days left before the window shuts on 1 September.
For Jones it is a cleaner story. He is 25, he has won two league titles at the club he supported, and he was about to spend a season as the fourth choice for two positions. Serie A champions offering a long-term contract is not a consolation prize.