The Reds helped develop Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane into Golden Boot winners. With teams catching up in the analytics department, the majority probably felt as though the club wouldn’t be able to unearth another player like that without breaking the bank. Diogo Jota cost just £40millon and joined during the same summer that Chelsea spent an initial £136million on Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner.
That trio have a combined 18 Premier League goals for the Blues. Jota has 21 for Liverpool over the same time period and he suffered an injury in December 2020 that kept him out until late February.
It is no coincidence either. Liverpool target players they know that they can improve. I realise this isn’t revolutionary, but it is amazing how many teams sign players who are quite clearly a poor fit. Jurgen Klopp mentioned it during his post-match interview following the win over Leicester City. This isn’t verbatim but he said something along the lines of we knew Jota had the ability to be even better in a team that created more chances.
Luis Diaz looks to be another who could scale his output at Anfield. He was a constant threat against Brendan Rodgers’ men and on another day, with a bit more luck, could’ve finished with at least a goal.
Many probably thought Mane and Salah arrived at the perfect time for in a system suited to them and that it wouldn’t happen again. That it was a once in a career sort of thing. I feel sorry for those clubs.
Kennett or Mcguire were on twitter last night or this morning talking about this and how odd it is we continually sign players who fit us like a glove, and their abilities or stats are usually there for all to see before we do, when other clubs just contimue to buy so poorly…
Jota had talent at Wolves, he’d sometimes tear opposition defences apart single handedly. The main thing thats happened here is Klopp getting consistency out of him. Obviously some improvements but mostly just meaning instead of Jota having an excellent game followed by an average then a poor Jota now just has consistently good or great games.
And for me its not just that they are such successful transfers. It’s that despite what happened with Mane and Mo, the response to Jota was largely the same - why him, and why for that much money when you could get a much better player for that amount?
By Klopp’s early reaction, one can usually tell whether the injury is bad or not. In this case, it seems that Jota will be absent for a while. Twisted ankle with swelling, we could have really done without it.
Klopp said it was a ligament not the ligament may miss the final which is gutting for team and player but I expect we should see him back after the Norwich cup game potentially.
Though can’t we have a bench of about 11, I’d stick him on it, he got us there.
