Curtis Jones said his stunning winner for Liverpool against Everton at Anfield in the FA Cup was beyond his wildest dreams as Jürgen Klopp savoured the triumph of a line-up packed with inexperienced players. Jones struck with a curler into the top corner from outside the area in the 71st minute to give Liverpool a 1-0 win – it was the 18-year-old’s first senior goal – and he admitted that it was overwhelming.
“I dream of a lot of things but this one was ahead of a dream,” Jones said. “I can’t sum up my emotions. There are world-class players all over this team but I think I went out and showed what I could do. The ball came to me and I only had one thing in mind – to shoot. It’s massive for me and the rest of the young boys. At times it’s frustrating thinking you might get a chance but then having to sit on the bench and watch.”
Klopp did not want to talk up Jones ahead of the many other youngsters who impressed, among them Neco Williams, Pedro Chirivella and the substitute Yasser Larouci. But he did suggest that Jones’s future lay as a Liverpool first-team player. “He’s an unbelievable player,” Klopp said. “A scouser, very confident, can’t wait to play in the first team. He has made big steps. He will be a Liverpool player if nothing strange happens, 100%. In Germany, because of a different system, he would play 100% another year in the youth team and nowhere else. Here he is around the first team.”
Klopp was annoyed to lose one of the few established players he used – James Milner – to a hamstring injury but he described the rest of the occasion as “absolutely perfect.” He added: “It’s very important we give the boys this opportunity. I tell them in training that it’s important not all of them, in their first impulse, go out on loan. There is something to learn here, as well. We saw these boys come closer and closer to being ready to play for us.”
A full-strength Everton team missed chances in the first half and were dreadful after the break. “It was not good,” Carlo Ancelotti, the manager, said. “I will speak with them and tell them that.”
