Steven Gerrard has revealed he told Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp to stick with creative midfielder Curtis Jones before he broke into the first team.
The former Rangers manager, who was a coach in the Premier League club's academy before heading to Ibrox, remembers speaking to the German boss about Jones' mentality as a Liverpool player. Jones has been a regular in Klopp's side in recent week which has coincided with a seven-match winning run, and eventually secured qualification for the Europa League next season at Anfield.
The 22-year-old has been the creative spark in recent weeks and bagged two goals against Leicester City last Monday to round off an impressive end to the season in red. Jones has suffered a number of injuries in the last two seasons which has curtailed his game time, and even led to the medical staff restricting how many minutes he could play. Despite the ups and downs Gerrard told Klopp that Jones was one to stick with.
He told the Anfield Wrap: "I used to make it personal with my own teammates to make sure I was best, no one out trained me, no one out-performed me on a daily basis because then I could look at a manager in the eye and say 'no no, I deserve to play in this team because I've shown you every single day or the majority of the days that I've been the best player'.
"That's the mentality you need at Liverpool, otherwise you don't last long or you don't play enough. I know he's (Curtis Jones) got that (mentality). I remember having a conversation with Jurgen and we were talking about Curtis and he was like 'yeah, there's a few little things that we need to improve in a few areas' and all that.
"I said 'yeah I get that and obviously you've all seen him a lot more than me because he was spending more time at Melwood at the time,' but I said 'stay with this kid, whatever you're thinking keep him and stay with him because he won't let you down'.
"Once you get him right and you've fixed the few little things that you need to fix, he won't let you down, he'll be there for you. I think he's showing Jurgen that now."
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