Manchester City’s Record Move for Elliot Anderson Exposes Liverpool’s Strategy with Curtis Jones

Manchester City’s record-breaking move for Elliot Anderson has not just reset the transfer market. It has thrown a harsh spotlight on Liverpool’s handling of Curtis Jones.

On Thursday evening, City struck a deal with Nottingham Forest worth a staggering £116m for Anderson, according to the BBC. It is a fee that rips up several records at once: a club-record outlay for City, the highest fee ever paid for a midfielder, and a new benchmark for a British footballer.

This is not blind extravagance. Anderson, at 23, is already a high-level midfielder with the profile to dominate the next decade. Technically sharp, tactically intelligent, and still years from his peak, he fits the modern superclub template almost perfectly. You pay a premium for that kind of projection.

Yet the moment that deal dropped, it did something else. It exposed Liverpool’s current strategy around Jones as dangerously out of step with the market.

Jones is 25, a year older than Anderson, and heading into the final 12 months of his contract. That contractual reality naturally drags his price down. It explains why Liverpool cannot realistically expect anything close to £116m if they decide to cash in.

But the reported £35m asking price? In this climate? For a homegrown, Premier League-proven central midfielder who has shown he can operate at the top end of the table? That figure looks wildly out of sync with what the market is screaming.

The Anderson deal underlines one thing with absolute clarity: elite or near-elite English midfielders command a premium that clubs are now willing to pay without blinking. City have just demonstrated that in the most emphatic way possible. Against that backdrop, the idea of Liverpool letting Jones leave for a fraction of that level feels not just questionable, but negligent.

This is where the focus inevitably lands on Richard Hughes and the recruitment team. Liverpool should be locking Jones down, not lining him up for a cut-price exit. The logical play is a new contract, securing both the player’s future and the club’s leverage. Instead, the indications are that those chances have been squandered.

If Jones does move on for around £35m, Liverpool will be watching a €90m-calibre asset – in pure market terms – walk out of the door for barely a third of his potential value. In an era where every top club is fighting to squeeze maximum value out of every deal, that kind of misstep is brutal.

This is not about claiming Jones is Anderson’s equal, or insisting he should command a nine-figure fee. It is about relative value. About reading the room. About understanding that when a club as ruthlessly efficient as Manchester City are prepared to smash records for a 23-year-old English midfielder, you do not casually wave away your own, established, homegrown talent for a mid-table fee.

For Liverpool, this should be a siren, not background noise. Either they find a way to reverse course and secure Jones on fresh terms, or they accept that they are sleepwalking into one of the most lopsided deals of the summer.