Liverpool Targets Adam Wharton After Curtis Jones Departure

Liverpool’s midfield is being ripped up and rewritten. Curtis Jones is on his way to Inter Milan, and attention at Anfield has already snapped towards Crystal Palace’s rising controller, Adam Wharton.

The Jones deal is effectively done. Inter have struck a €35m package with Liverpool, with Fabrizio Romano delivering his trademark “here we go” on Wednesday and a medical lined up. Jones has since been filmed arriving in Milan to put the final touches on the move, ending a long association with his boyhood club and opening a sizeable hole in Andoni Iraola’s midfield options.

Liverpool’s rebuild under Iraola has already started to take shape. Victor Munoz has arrived from Osasuna, Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes, and Ronald Araujo has joined on a season-long loan from Barcelona. The back line and squad depth are being reshaped, but the real tension lies further forward.

The club are locked in a drawn-out pursuit of Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola, a deal that has dragged for weeks as Liverpool look to inject fresh threat out wide after the departure of Mohamed Salah to Trabzonspor at the end of last season. Losing Salah stripped the side of its talisman. Losing Jones removes another homegrown thread from the core of the team.

So the next move has to land.

Iraola greenlights Wharton push

Into that gap steps Wharton. According to CaughtOffside, Liverpool are now targeting what has been described as an “ambitious move” for the Crystal Palace midfielder, with sources close to the agents’ market indicating the club are ready to accelerate their pursuit in the wake of Jones’ exit.

Crucially, Iraola has “approved” the idea. The 22-year-old is seen as a deep-lying conductor who can dictate tempo from the base of midfield, freeing Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai to operate higher up the pitch and closer to goal. In theory, Wharton would become the metronome, the player who knits Liverpool’s phases together and lets Iraola’s more attacking midfielders run wild.

The problem? Palace know exactly what they have.

The Eagles are reluctant to sell this summer and value Wharton at around £78m. That figure reflects not only his talent but his trajectory: a midfielder who started last season in the Championship and ended it in England’s senior squad, drawing praise from one of the best in his position.

Rice’s glowing verdict

Declan Rice has already nailed his colours to the mast when it comes to Wharton’s potential. Speaking in June 2024 about his new England team-mate, the Arsenal midfielder did not hold back.

“He’s been outstanding,” Rice said. “In training, he impressed a lot of the players. He’s so composed and calm on the ball. He played his first half of the season in the Championship, he’s [come into the England team] from Crystal Palace now.”

Rice highlighted Wharton’s “beautiful left foot” and “really crisp passing”, but also his character: a grounded, eager learner, still only 20 at the time, boarding the plane to his first European Championship. Rice was adamant Wharton would be “ready when called upon” and “won’t take it for granted”, pointing to the composure he had already shown on the big stage.

“I think he’s one of them that doesn’t get fazed by big things,” Rice added, grouping Wharton with Kobbie Mainoo as part of a midfield future that “looks bright” for England.

That is the player Liverpool are now trying to prise away from Selhurst Park.

With Jones heading to Serie A, Salah gone and the Barcola chase rumbling on, the shape of Iraola’s first Liverpool side is still incomplete. The question is simple and brutal: will Fenway Sports Group push hard enough, and pay high enough, to make Wharton the new heartbeat of Anfield’s midfield?