Curtis Jones has insisted that he is fit and raring to go ahead of the new Premier League season despite suffering a slight injury during Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the United States.
The midfielder missed training after coming off early in their opening victory over Real Betis, though he would recover in time to start against both Arsenal and Manchester United.
Scoring in the 3-0 victory over the Red Devils, he revealed his withdrawal on the hour mark came after taking a knock to the back of the head. But admitting the decision to take him off was down to new head coach Arne Slot, Jones downplayed any fears about his fitness as he revealed that Liverpool will be returning to Merseyside with a fully fit squad.
I try to improve all the time,” he said. “Now I feel more like a senior lad in the team. I wanted to come here and impress. It was a younger group as well so I wanted to go out and lead.“I feel that I’m in a good place. I had a little bit of an ankle issue and a knee issue and that’s why I came off in the first game.“I think I could have played the whole game there (against Manchester United), yeah.
But I got a whack in the back of my head. And he (Slot) just said we took you off as more of a precaution thing, we don’t need to risk anything. So, am I fit? Yeah, 100 percent. If I’m needed to go and start the first game of the season, then yeah – if I can.“It’s super important that we come away here, it’s been a hard camp, we’ve training every day, it’s been hard, it’s been hot.
We’ve come away with a full squad of lads who are fit. We’re all fit and we’ve got the lads who are coming back too. Meanwhile, Jones has vowed to keep improving in front of goal after scoring against United as he continues to enjoy Liverpool’s new tweaked possession style under Slot.
It’s huge now in terms of our style of play,” he told LFC TV. “The centre-mids, the sixes and the eights, they’re going to get the ball a lot. It’s down to us to create things.“If I can get a goal, great. If I can get an assist, great. But the most important thing is that I serve the lads ahead so they can get the goals.
I want to be a lad who scores goals and gets assists and help the team. I took it on myself. I know that Mo (Salah) now likes to get more assists as well. He’s fantastic at getting his head up and he puts it on a plate.“It’s part of my game I feel I can improve. I can arrive in the box more, I can score more goals. Now it’s a perfect time.
You’ve seen I’ve played deep but I can go and play high. Football now has changed where it’s all about stats, it’s all about goals and assists.“There have been plenty of times where I’ve told Mo, ‘Mo, I’ve been the best one there on the pitch’. But he said, ‘I score the goals’.
We’ve got to try and improve my game and a big part of that is I have to score goals, I have to assist more and I have to be involved as much as I can. The game has now changed and you keep yourself in the team if you’re scoring goals.
If the manager sees you as a guy who can go out there and score, affect the game, then you keep your shirt. So that’s what I’ll try and do.
