Jurgen Klopp surely has to recall 26-year-old Liverpool player to start vs Brentford after Toulouse game last night

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There weren’t many good performances amongst the wreckage of Liverpool’s trip to Toulouse last night.

The Reds were outfought all over the pitch. Sloppy on the ball and lethargic in the challenge, Liverpool deservedly took their first Europa League beating since the 2016 final.

Nevertheless, there were still one or two bright spots for Jurgen Klopp to cling to. Perhaps the brightest of those was Liverpool’s only goal-scorer of the night, Diogo Jota.

With Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah generally taking the headlines, Jota has quietly been having an excellent campaign.

His slaloming run and finish last night gave him his seventh goal of a productive season so far. Only on the pitch for ten minutes, the 26-year-old made a greater impact than Cody Gakpo managed in almost 75 minutes.

He simply has to be back in the starting line-up when Brentford come to town on Sunday.

Jota picks up the pieces

Jota’s goal last night means that the Portugal international has now matched his tally for the whole of last season.

Indeed, with his first goal of 2022/23 not coming until April, Jota actually has 14 in his last 24 games for Liverpool. That’s excellent going.

Those 14 goals also came in just 14 starts. 11 of them were scored when Jota was in Klopp’s first XI.

The conclusion seems simple, when Jota starts of late, he tends to score. He’s also been good off the bench to be fair, with Chris Sutton calling his impact ‘incredible’ earlier in the season against Aston Villa.

But it’s when he starts that Jota scores most of his goals. They may not be net-busters or wondergoals and many of them are indeed scruffy little finishes, but the Portuguese has a habit of popping up when Liverpool need him. And Liverpool do need him.

Having failed to win the past two games – both of which were very winnable on paper – the Reds need a result on Sunday.

Gakpo has shown that he isn’t quite up to speed after his recent injury, while Luis Diaz is still dealing with the emotions of the past couple of weeks, after his Dad was released.

As a result, Jota must start on Sunday. He, Nunez and Salah have been Liverpool’s best three forwards this season. Let’s see them play together on Sunday please, Jurgen.