We live in a very Jockey or nothing world.

You’re either avocado on toast or full English. Game of Thrones or Vikings. Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Phil Foden or Mason Mount.

There’s little room for middle ground in the skirmishes between our borders of allegiance.

Fortunately for Curtis Jones, his stock is in that sweet spot between Jockey or nothing.

Courtesy of Harvey Elliott’s meteoric rise this season, Jones was somewhat of an afterthought, until Elliott’s freak injury against Leeds United. That untimely curse from the football gods, combined with Thiago Alcantara and Naby Keita missing time due to injury and AFCON, thrust Jones into the starting line-up.

Since then, the Toxteth-born midfielder has played the full 90 minutes four times in Liverpool’s last six and was handed a start in the fourth round of the FA Cup tie at home to Cardiff. While the 21-year-old wasn’t at his technicolour best in his last outing, Jones has taken a considerable leap this year.

Competing for minutes in a Liverpool midfield is a tall order. Fabinho is rarely brought out of the rotation, and Thiago is a bona fide starter whenever he’s available. That last bit, though, has been somewhat of a Hail Mary for Jurgen Klopp this season.

For Jones, this was manna from heaven.

Against Porto at the Estadio do Dragao in September, Jones laid down the law, reminding Liverpool fans why he has always been earmarked as a future star. Jones played a role in all five of Liverpool’s goals as they expertly navigated what many had dubbed the ‘group of death’ in the Champions League.

Go further back to January 2020 in the FA Cup, and there's the sight of Jones curling one in from the edge of the box against Carlo Ancelotti's Everton, making Jordan Pickford look like he was being animated by Geppetto's strings.

That momentgasm of a strike brought Jones' audacity to the fore. It was as if the young Scouser's decision to bend it in created a warp in the football universe, allowing time to pause so that Anfield could take a breath and bask in that moment of magisterial brilliance.

Jones is capable of those Hollywood moments, but he's still a midfielder in Klopp's 4-3-3, which requires a degree of grit, physicality, positional discipline and off-the-ball movement.

It is in these areas that Jones has progressed this season, looking a lot more assured when called upon on the left of the midfield three.

The sample size is small (630 mins in the PL and UCL over the last year), but according to Fbref data via StatsBomb, among midfielders in Europe's top five leagues, Jones ranks in the 80th percentile for total pressures, 89th percentile for pressures in the middle third, and 98th percentile for pressures in the attacking third.

And that's just out of possession.

In possession, Jones likes to carry the ball (99th percentile for progressive carries, 98th percentile for carries into the final third) and fashion something out of nothing, as evident from his showcase against Porto.

Where Jones still needs some polishing is how much time he takes on the ball and his progressive passing, though he does rank in the >75th percentile for ball progression (progressive passes + progressive carries per 90) and ball retention (touches per turnover) among U23 midfielders in Europe's top five leagues, per the same database.

The hope is that Jones picks up some of Thiago's stardust over the next season or so. The Spanish midfield orchestrator has a technical brilliance forged in the fires of Barcelona's famed La Masia academy, and Jones is privy to that brilliance in training.

That, combined with the fact that Jones has two more years left under Klopp's tutelage, is an encouraging sign for Liverpool and England. Klopp's coaching has been somewhat of a cheat code over the years with his ability to consistently coax the best out of his players.

In the meantime, the spotlight will be on the more heralded Foden, Elliott, Mount and Jude Bellingham.

For Jones, it's the perfect storm. He will bide his time until he's called upon, producing audacious moments, gliding across the pitch with ice in his veins, running at defenders with menace in his eyes.

For now, he's somewhat of an accidental culture wars totem, caught between Foden and Mount. Tomorrow, who knows? He could be the acerbic prophet preaching the gospel of Klopp-ball, still producing little gold nuggets panned from the dust.