While Diogo Jota’s numbers show he is a key player for Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, the versatile forward remains an enigma to many that has left him underrated.
By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
The temperatures are dropping as winter sets in, Jürgen Klopp’s first team are not due in training, and time off is becoming a luxury as Liverpool contend with the uniquely busy schedule of a season back in the Europa League.
But boots are still on the ground at the AXA Training Centre, as Diogo Jota joins goalkeeper Adrian in putting members of the Steven Gerrard Academy through their paces in a specialised training session.
It isn’t a pastime the majority of 26-year-old footballers would opt for in their downtime from the day job, but Liverpool’s No. 20 is already working towards life after his time on the pitch.
Jota is currently studying for his UEFA B Licence, with his experience with Gerrard’s youth initiative coming after a similar exercise with those from Robbie Fowler’s Football Education Academy earlier in the year. It is something he described in a recent interview as “like Football Manager converted into real life,” with the Portuguese an avid gamer who has invested heavily into eSports.
All of this could be considered a distraction for an elite-level footballer – not to mention a father of two, which brings its own off-field challenges – but for Jota, it only adds to the mystique of a player who has proved more effective than perhaps many would expect.
A £45 million signing from Wolves in the pandemic summer of 2020, Jota was brought in to disrupt the world-best front three of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino; the first move in a long-term regeneration of the unit that fired Klopp’s side to success.
Now in his fourth season on Merseyside, there is a sense that he has never quite cemented himself as first choice, with 83 of his 129 appearances to date coming from the start but another 46 as a substitute. Surprisingly, he has only completed the full 90 minutes on 26 occasions.
Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez have both become more popular names among supporters after Mané’s time at the club came to an end, but Jota has arguably been more dependable and consistent than either of his fellow forwards.
With 49 goals and 17 assists in his 129 games for the club so far, Jota is the fourth-highest scorer throughout Klopp’s reign, averaging a direct goal contribution every 115.2 minutes. Seventeen of those goals (34.7%) were match-winners and six of them (12.3%) were equalisers, while 19 of his efforts (38.8%) were the first goal of the game. This season, with eight goals in 16 appearances (all comps), he is outscoring his xG by 3.6.
Jota has scored in 40 different games for Liverpool; when he finds the back of the net, it often means something.
So why is he such an enigma?
Perhaps it is due to his directness. It was often remarked upon his arrival from the Midlands that Jota, with his pale skin, tight curls and firm grasp of English, looked and acted more like a Scouser than he did a Portuguese, and that translates to the pitch, too.
Jota’s play is marked by a relentless energy – and a surprising aerial ability for a player under 5’10” – but also a tendency to drift in and out of games. He is less pacy and certainly less flashy than Díaz, while he is less commanding than Núñez; he doesn’t possess the X factor that Salah has.
Compared to his positional peers this season, Jota is in the 99th percentile when it comes to goals and the 90th percentile in terms of attempts on goal, but only the 25th percentile for touches. He is in the 27th percentile for pass accuracy and the mid-range for defensive attributes such as tackles won (48th), interceptions (49th), duels won (64th) and recoveries (41st), but ranks extremely high, in the 85th percentile, when it comes to touches in the opposition’s box.
It has certainly made him underrated in terms of his value to the squad, often seen as fifth in the pecking order below Salah, Núñez, Díaz and Cody Gakpo.
But it would be wrong to paint Jota as a passenger, as instead he should be seen more as a difference-maker. Speaking after his third of 17 match-winning goals for the club so far, a clinical finish in the 2-1 victory over West Ham in October 2020, he revealed how he had spotted his opening while watching on as a substitute.
“The goal means a lot,” he explained. “Seeing the game on the bench, I’m always thinking about what I can do to change things.”
But while he may remain typecast as an impact player, the evidence shows that he is far from that in Klopp’s mind; the perception of Jota as a squad player is undermined by long spells in the starting lineup which are often only broken by untimely injury.
He has started each of the last four games in the Premier League and, after following a well-taken consolation in the 3-2 loss to Toulouse with a rocket of a strike in the 3-0 pummelling of Brentford, is favourite to keep his place ahead of Díaz when the trip to Manchester City comes around on May 25.
That will largely be due to the manager’s trust in his student of the game to execute the plan of action, with Jota’s obsession with football spanning from the pitch to his PlayStation and now to coaching on the training field.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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