€25m, €31.7m, €32m, €35m, €40m. Strung end to end, those figures are the ladder Inter Milan and Liverpool have been climbing all summer, haggling over a midfielder in increments small enough to scribble on a matchday programme. Type “Curtis Jones Liverpool” into a search bar this August and the autocomplete finishes the sentence for you: contract, injury, transfer, salary.
Six and a half years before this haggle began, the same player curled a 20-yard shot past Jordan Pickford to win a Merseyside derby, aged 18, in a team of teenagers and reserves. He has collected more than 200 appearances and six major trophies since. He is also the last first-team Scouser at Anfield, and the ladder above is the price of losing that.
Curtis Jones is a Toxteth-born midfielder who joined Liverpool at nine, won a Merseyside derby with his first club goal in January 2020, and by August 2026 sat at the centre of a €35m Inter Milan verbal agreement with one year left on his contract and six England caps to his name.
Inter’s five bids and the sliding price tag
Inter’s serious offers, €25m, €31.7m and €32m, were all rejected in July, with Liverpool holding out for a valuation above €40m according to Corriere dello Sport. By 17 August the position had softened. This Is Anfield reported the asking price trimmed to €35m, roughly £30m, and within days Fabrizio Romano posted that the clubs had a verbal agreement at a €35m package, with personal terms settled and Jones wanting only Inter. CaughtOffside carried the personal-terms line the same day.
Anfield has not put a signature to any of it.
The detail that stings sits next door. The same week Liverpool trimmed the price tag, This Is Anfield also reported the club have close to zero chance of signing a replacement midfielder this window, even if Jones goes. So the arithmetic of the summer is a new head coach, one fewer midfielder, and nobody arriving to take the minutes. The €5m gap between the two clubs was a staring contest. The window shuts on 1 September and somebody will blink.
What leaves Anfield when the Curtis Jones Liverpool story ends
The biography is the part the fee cannot explain. Jones grew up in Toxteth and was spotted by Liverpool’s academy on a school trip at nine, a scouting story so local it sounds invented. First-team debut in the FA Cup against Wolves in January 2019. First goal the following January, that curling derby strike, which made him the youngest Merseyside derby scorer since Robbie Fowler. On 5 February 2020 he became the club’s youngest captain, at 19 years and five days.
He was 19. He is still only 25.
The exits stacked up around him before his own did. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Spanish gamble emptied one academy chair last summer, and Jarell Quansah’s £34m sale to Bayer Leverkusen emptied another. Rousing the Kop counted what a Jones departure leaves behind: no first-team Scouser at all, with the next cohort of Liverpool-born kids still years from the training ground. The academy is full of Scousers, and the squad will soon hold none.
Iraola’s clean slate meets Jones’s hip
May 2026 ended the Slot era a year after the title, ESPN reporting the sacking as the price for a dismal second season. Andoni Iraola arrived from Bournemouth as head coach, watched a 4-2 pre-season win over Sunderland, and inherited a squad that opens the league at Newcastle. Jones watched most of it from the treatment room. The club’s own availability update said he “finished with issues in the hip,” and Yahoo Sports logged him as a curious absentee for the Monaco and Como friendlies.
The hip said no.
Cruel, that timing. A new head coach is the cleanest slate a 25-year-old rotation player will ever be offered, a first pre-season with no inherited pecking order, and his body chose that exact month to complain. There is a smaller irony too. During the worst stretch of 2025-26, Jones publicly backed Slot, telling reporters that “he is human at the end of the day.” The man he defended was sacked within months. Loyalty at that level of football is a currency that only spends in one direction.
Six caps and a backheel that deserved better
November 2024 was supposed to be the opening chapter. Lee Carsley handed him his debut against Greece in the Nations League and Jones scored with a backheel flick into the far corner, the kind of finish broadcasters replay at every opportunity. England legacy number 1286. Six caps and one goal followed, including involvement in the 3-0 World Cup qualifying win over Latvia at Wembley.
Then the phone went quiet.
Thomas Tuchel left him out of England’s 2026 World Cup squad, The Independent listing him among the notable omissions alongside Joe Gomez and Rio Ngumoha. Scoring on your debut is meant to be the start of the story. For Jones it remains the best line in it, six caps and a backheel that promised a rather different international career.
The Curtis Jones Liverpool contract maths nobody agrees on
The paperwork is where the saga turns strange. Jones signed his current deal on 17 November 2022 and it runs to 30 June 2027, with new-contract talks stalled for months. Let this window pass and Liverpool carry a player into his final year whom they once priced at €40m, the free-transfer risk This Is Anfield flagged in June. Even his salary is a rumour. Aggregators cited by Tuko put his annual pay at £780,000 in one place and £3.48m in another, a gap so wide that the only honest sentence is that nobody outside the building knows.
His personal ledger is steadier. His daughter Giselle Delilah was born on 13 October 2024 to his partner Saffie Khan, and days later he scored and dedicated the celebration to the baby. A man with that week in his recent memory does not agitate for a move to warm a bench in a smaller league. Inter are offering minutes Liverpool cannot promise, in a summer when Liverpool’s promise list is short. Strip out the €5m theatre and that is the entire deal.
Confirmed and assumed, 19 August 2026
Confirmed: the 2027 contract, the stalled talks, the rejected bids, the verbal €35m club-to-cluster agreement reported by Romano, the hip issue, the World Cup omission. Assumed: that a medical and a completed deal follow the verbal one, and that Iraola would keep him if the window froze today. Both assumptions are live, and the second is the one nobody at Anfield has answered straight.
What the Kop keeps asking
What position does Curtis Jones play for Liverpool?
A right-sided midfielder who can sit deeper as a six, wearing number 17. Iraola’s high-press system at Bournemouth favoured exactly his kind of ball-carrying eight, which is one reason the fit looked tempting before the hip complaint.
Has Curtis Jones agreed to join Inter Milan?
Fabrizio Romano reports a verbal club-to-club agreement at a €35m package with personal terms settled, and Jones is said to want only Inter. Liverpool have not announced anything, and the window closes on 1 September.
Why was Curtis Jones left out of England’s 2026 World Cup squad?
Tuchel simply overlooked him despite the goal on debut against Greece, The Independent grouping him with the squad’s notable absentees. Six caps and one goal is the entire senior record so far.
Where did Curtis Jones grow up?
In Toxteth, attending St Vincent de Paul primary school, before a school trip at age nine put him in front of Liverpool’s academy. His Nigerian ancestry would also have made him eligible for Nigeria, a path he never took.
Does Curtis Jones have a child?
Yes, a daughter, Giselle Delilah Jones, born on 13 October 2024 to his partner Saffie Khan. He scored for Liverpool days after her birth and dedicated the celebration to her.
How much does Curtis Jones earn at Liverpool?
Nobody agrees. One salary aggregator cites about £780,000 a year and another about £3.48m, so any weekly figure online is a guess wearing a spreadsheet costume. The only verified number is the contract’s end date, 30 June 2027.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Curtis Jones (footballer, born 2001)”. Confirmed birth and Toxteth upbringing, debut dates, the January 2020 derby goal and youngest-captain record, the 17 November 2022 contract, the backheel on England debut and the honours list. Published: continuously updated. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Jones_(footballer,_born_2001)
- LiverpoolFC.com, “Liverpool FC appoint Andoni Iraola as new head coach”. Confirmed Iraola’s appointment ahead of 2026-27. Published: summer 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/liverpool-fc-appoint-andoni-iraola-new-head-coach
- LiverpoolFC.com, “Liverpool’s injury list, suspensions and availability”. Confirmed the hip issue wording in the club’s own update. Published: updated August 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/liverpools-injury-list-suspensions-and-availability
- ESPN, “Liverpool sack Arne Slot 1 year after Premier League title”. Confirmed Slot’s departure with immediate effect after the 2025-26 season. Published: May 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48918413/arne-slot-leaves-liverpool-immediate-effect
- This Is Anfield, “Liverpool ‘Drop Curtis Jones Price’ Ahead of New Inter Milan Bid”. Confirmed the reduced €35m asking price, the rejected-bid ladder and the “close to zero chance” replacement-midfielder line. Published: 17 August 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.thisisanfield.com/2026/08/liverpool-drop-curtis-jones-asking-price-inter-milan-bid/
- GiveMeSport, “Romano: Liverpool Agree Deal To Sell Curtis Jones”. Confirmed the verbal €35m club-to-club agreement and settled personal terms via Fabrizio Romano. Published: August 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.givemesport.com/breaking-liverpool-agree-deal-inter-milan-curtis-jones-transfer/
- The Independent, “The shock absence from England’s World Cup squad”. Confirmed Tuchel’s omission of Jones from the 2026 World Cup squad. Published: June 2026. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/sport/england-world-cup-2026-squad-no-liverpool-players-b2981818.html
- englandstats.com, “Curtis Jones (1286)”. Confirmed six senior caps, one goal, and the 14 November 2024 debut against Greece. Published: living database. Accessed: 19 August 2026. https://www.englandstats.com/player.php?pid=1286
