There was much amusement in the Melwood media room on Monday when the subject of who would captain Liverpool's kids arose.
Pedro Chirivella – the oldest and most experienced member of this boys' brigade – seemed the natural choice, given he had fulfilled the role in the Carabao Cup quarter-final at Aston Villa when the senior team were 4,000 miles away in Qatar. The other candidate was Curtis Jones.
'It's a toss of the coin, really,' Neil Critchley, Liverpool's Under 23 head coach observed with a telling smile. 'But if Curtis gives me the coin, you can be sure it will be a double-headed one!'
Jones, the hero of round three when he scored a quite magnificent goal to knock Everton out of the competition, grew up in the city centre idolising Steven Gerrard with dreams that he would one day emulate his hero.
For all his natural confidence and self-belief, however, he could never have believed it would happen so soon. Here was the ultimate birthday present: five days after turning 19, Jones entered the history books and became Liverpool's youngest skipper.
To give this statistic some context, the record had stood since 1900 and belonged to Alex Raisbeck (20 years and 250 days). Whatever your feelings about the senior players being away and Jurgen Klopp not being present, nothing will dilute this particular moment in Jones's career.
