Liverpool: What is the role of Portuguese Diogo Jota in the...

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Before the end of the Liverpool-Southampton match on Saturday, Reds fans were so hungry for another goal that they shouted for their players to shoot from anywhere.

This was 30 minutes after he scored the fourth goal against Southampton. What if Liverpool fail to score in any of their matches this season?

This scenario is excluded at the current stage. None of the matches this season has ended without a record by the Reds in the opponents’ net.

In a total of 17 matches played by Liverpool in all competitions, the team scored an average of two goals per game – the highest level for an English club in nearly a hundred years.

So far, the Reds have scored 39 goals in a total of 13 games, which is the team’s highest goal-scoring rate to this point in the Premier League’s life – even higher than the team’s goal-scoring rate in the 2019-20 season in which they won the Premier League title.

After the Reds beat Southampton, Liverpool are now second in the Premier League table. Is Liverpool at the top? Did Portuguese Diogo Jota – who joined the Reds after winning the title – have a major role in this?

The name of the Egyptian Mohamed Salah made the headlines of the sports news this season with his goals scored with Liverpool.

But in the Southampton game, it became clear that Liverpool’s attacking trio – the Egyptian pharaoh, Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Portugal’s Jota – made up a unique front.

The Brazilian Roberto Firmino has long been playing the role of the Reds playmaker well, but Jota makes his mark here in the center of the attack.

The 24-year-old Jota has attacking faculties that play a pivotal role in enabling both Salah and Mane to exploit their speed, as well as dribbling and deflecting the opponent’s defense – just as it was shown against Southampton, where Salah and Mane contributed to Jota’s two goals.

The Portuguese has shown the ability to play anywhere in the attacking positions, and this is not evidenced by his contributions during this season with Liverpool: ten starts, seven goals, as well as a pass that assisted a goal.

Since moving from Wolverhampton Wanderers in September last year, Jota has scored 20 goals in 46 appearances in all competitions – an impressive rate, especially as he was out of action for three months last season with a knee injury.

ويتصدر Salah The list of top scorers in the English Premier League so far with eleven goals, followed by Jota, Sadio Mane and Jamie Vardy (from Leicester team) with seven goals each.

And about Jota, the Liverpool coach says: “Diogo is an exceptional player.”

“He’s an excellent deal,” adds Jurgen Klopp. “He has everything a Liverpool player needs – a skillful player, with physical potential, as well as a keen intelligence that helps him quickly understand tactics.”

Klopp continues, “Jota can move through the three attacking positions, and he also has the speed to finish the game in record time. He is a really good player.”

Liverpool scored 39 goals in 13 games this season, thus exceeding its record by nine goals in the same period of the championship during the season in which it won the title, and surpassing it by ten goals compared to its record during the same period last season.

The Reds were unable to defend the title last season, as the team was suffering from a defensive crisis, but with the return of its key players to their level, Liverpool this season appears more capable of competing for the title.

Klopp says: “I know what we were missing [الموسم الماضي], it is the stability of the formation. Without a fulcrum for a while, we had to look for solutions. We were in shock that prevented us from playing our way.”

The German adds: “Now we have regained our stability; every player knows his role well.”

Southampton coach Ralph Hasenhuttl believes that Liverpool have regained their fierceness, and since the end of last month, Liverpool have scored 14 goals in five games.

“This team is at its best now,” says Hasenhuttl. “They didn’t make the mistake they made at the end of last month against Brighton with two goals to nothing; they kept scoring.”

“I learned from my mistakes“

Last season may not have yielded an award for Liverpool, but Jurgen Klopp believes it has yielded valuable experience.

To overcome injuries in defense, Klopp played both Fabinho and Jordan Henderson in late positions, leaving the team in a precarious state.

“I learned a lot,” says Klopp. “Yes, that’s how it is, I make mistakes.”

He adds: “When you lose a pivot player, you lose a leg, but when you put the central defender on the last line and you open holes in other places, you break your spine and then you lose the ability to move. This is exactly what happened last year.”

And Klopp continues: “This season he was not polite in vain, I learned more from him than I have learned in other seasons.”