Curtis Jones Targets Trophies at Inter Milan After Liverpool Exit

Curtis Jones has moved on from Liverpool, and the reasoning is straightforward. At 25, after eight seasons around the first team and plenty of silverware, he wanted something bigger in his own career, a central role in a side built to win immediately. Inter Milan offered that.

His Liverpool record stands up well enough. Jones made 228 appearances, scored 22 goals and supplied 22 assists. He collected two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, two League Cups and the FIFA Club World Cup. Those are serious honours by any measure. But footballers do not judge their careers only by what they won, they judge them by when and how much they were trusted.

That is where the picture changes. Jones was an unused substitute in the FA Cup final, the Club World Cup final and Liverpool’s 2022 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid. He also missed the matchday squads for the 2022 and 2024 League Cup finals, with injury keeping him out of the latter. For a home-grown midfielder at his boyhood club, that matters.

Inter Milan move built on ambition

Inter are not offering nostalgia, they are offering a project with recent evidence behind it. Three Serie A titles, three Coppa Italia triumphs and two Champions League final appearances in the past five years tell the story clearly enough. Jones has joined a club that expects to compete for major honours every season.

He has made his priorities clear too. “Simply winning. I want to win,” he said when asked about his objective in Milan. “I want to be part of a winning team.

“I have great faith in the guys around me. I don’t want to be the one who just says: ‘I want to score all the goals, I want to make all the assists’.

“Of course, I want to score, make assists, and help the team. But the quality of the players I’ve seen around me is extraordinary. I know opportunities like this will come.

“But above all, I want to be part of a winning team, come in and make my contribution.”

Liverpool exit carried emotional weight

There is no need to pretend this was an easy departure. Jones made that plain. “It makes me feel really good to know that such a great team has placed their trust in me, giving me the chance to come here and be part of the team. Because, in any case, my choice has always been Inter.

“I know the club’s history, the players, the great champions, and everyone who has worn this shirt. But I’ve always been a Liverpool boy, I’ve always been attached to my club and its history.

Photo: IMAGO

“Then, walking into that (trophy) room (when I signed), I saw how much gold there was and how many trophies this club had won. It was truly crazy, incredible. I will give everything for Inter and try to win as many trophies as possible for this club.”

Next step for Curtis Jones

So far, the start has been modest. Jones has returned to partial training and has made five appearances for Cristian Chivu’s side, without a goal or assist. That will not worry Inter too much yet. They did not sign him for a headline in August, they signed him for impact over a season. For Jones, this is about proving that leaving Liverpool was not sentiment lost, but ambition acted on.