Inter Milan Nears £30m Deal for Jones as Liverpool Exit Looms

Inter Milan are closing fast on a £30m deal for Jones, with confidence growing in Italy that the transfer will be tied up soon after a decisive breakthrough in talks with Liverpool.

The Italian champions have tracked the 25-year-old for a long time and, after weeks of back-and-forth, the gap in valuation has finally begun to shrink. Liverpool had knocked back a verbal offer of £21.7m in June, holding out for closer to £35m for a player with one year left on his contract and valuable homegrown status.

Inter did not walk away. They kept coming.

Their persistence has dragged the negotiations towards a compromise figure, with the structure of a package now moving into the region of £30m – similar to what Inter recently paid Tottenham for Djed Spence. While some details between the clubs still need ironing out, the sense in Milan is that the deal is now heading in one direction.

Liverpool, for their part, have stood firm all summer. The club have been clear they would only sanction a sale if the fee reflected Jones’s Premier League experience and the premium that comes with being homegrown. They remain open to a transfer at the right price, and Inter’s latest push appears to have landed in that territory.

This is not a new courtship. Inter first made a serious move for Jones in January, putting forward a loan with an option to buy. Liverpool dismissed that proposal quickly, unwilling to lose him mid-season on those terms. The interest never went away; it simply rolled into the summer.

For Jones, a switch to San Siro would close a long, personal story at Anfield. He joined Liverpool’s academy at nine years old and climbed every rung of the ladder, from promising teenager to first-team regular. Since his debut under Jurgen Klopp in 2019, he has pulled on the shirt 228 times, chipping in with a collection of eye-catching goals that underlined his technical quality and composure.

Last season told a more complicated tale. Jones featured 49 times in all competitions, but only 18 of those outings came as Premier League starts. He never quite nailed down a permanent role in Arne Slot’s midfield, caught between competition for places and tactical reshaping.

Inside the club, there is still admiration. New head coach Andoni Iraola is understood to want him to stay, yet the reality of stalled contract talks and Jones’s appetite for a fresh challenge have shifted the landscape. Inter’s project, and the promise of a central role in Serie A and the Champions League, has turned a possible move into a probable one.

If the final details fall into place, a boy who grew up on Merseyside’s pitches will walk out at San Siro in black and blue. The question now is not whether Inter can get him – but how Liverpool choose to reshape their midfield once he’s gone.