With Mohamed Salah going off to the African Cup of Nations, Liverpool fans will be biting their nails that his absence won’t make too much of an impact on the team.
Just like Erling Haaland for Manchester City, Salah has been the backbone for Liverpool in terms of providing goal contributions this season. But he isn’t alone, there is another Liverpool star who has been extremely productive and who is contributing even more than Haaland so far this season.
Diogo Jota has spent a fair chunk of the season on the sidelines with a muscle injury, but when he has been on the pitch he’s been firing goals, left, right and centre.
Since returning from his injury, Jota hasn’t even started a game yet but he already has three goal contributions, scoring against Burnley, providing the assist for Curtis Jones and winning the penalty against Newcastle.
In total, he now has 11 goal contributions this season.
Diogo Jota better than Haaland?
When you distil his numbers down to minutes played, they are even more impressive.
Currently, if you exclude penalty contributions, Jota is averaging a goal or assist every 95 minutes for Liverpool in all competitions as opposed to Erling Haaland who only averages a goal or assist every 99 minutes for Manchester City.
Those numbers highlight just how valuable the Portuguese forward has been for Liverpool. Signed for what now looks like a bargain at £45m, Jota could be the key to maintain Liverpool’s Premier League title push in January.
With Salah away on international duty, the Reds will look to Jota to score goals. If he can stay fit, having him in this kind of form will be a huge boost for Jurgen Klopp.
The Portuguese has been extremely clinical this season. As per Wyscout, he has a better goal conversion percentage (21.79%) than Salah (21.53%). Liverpool has not struggled to create chances so far this season, but putting them away has been a problem. Perhaps, Jota can now solve that issue.
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