‘Frightening’… Danny Murphy says Liverpool have a top player who doesn’t start that much

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Danny Murphy has put forward two players who can fill in for Liverpool while Mohamed Salah is at AFCON.

The Reds are set to be without Salah throughout January, as he aims for glory with Egypt in the Ivory Coast.

Clearly, the 31-year-old is going to be a big miss for Liverpool. With 14 goals and eight assists in the Premier League this season, Salah is currently on fire.

But speaking on TalkSPORT today, former Red Murphy has claimed that he’s ‘not that concerned’ about Liverpool’s No.11 being out action. Whilst predicting his old club to finish above Arsenal, the pundit said Cody Gakpo and in particular Diogo Jota will be ready to step in for Jurgen Klopp.

“I think they’ve got better firepower than Arsenal and they’ll finish above them,” Murphy said. “If anyone’s going to take on City it’ll be Liverpool because they’ve got a manager who’s proven he’s capable of competing with Guardiola and nobody else has.

“I’m not concerned [about Salah going to AFCON] because of the fact that they’ve got Jota and Gakpo to come in and they are really good players. You’ve just got to look at Jota’s numbers, he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He’s always, always scoring goals. His numbers are frightening, especially for a wide player and somebody who doesn’t start that much. So, I’m not that concerned, no.”

Murphy lauds Jota output

Jota’s numbers could have looked even better this season had he managed to score against Newcastle on Monday.

The 27-year-old has received criticism for going to ground under a challenge from Martin Dubravka instead of putting the ball in the net.

Although we don’t blame him for going down – we don’t think he could have stayed up – it would have been nice for Jota to score again.

That would have made it two goals in two substitute appearances since his return from injury on Boxing Day. It would have been 10 in 12 starts and would have rewarded a quite brilliant Alexis Mac Allister pass with an assist. Oh well.

Beyond that frustration though, Murphy is absolutely right about Jota. He’s become a real consistent threat in-front of goal for Liverpool of late.

Having gone a full calendar year without a goal from April 2022 to April 2023, the Portugal international has bounced back in a big way.

With Salah gone, now is the time for Diogo to underline claims that he’s Liverpool second-best forward, behind the Egyptian.

Gakpo will be needed too, as well Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz. But it’s in Jota that Reds’ fans hopes will lie the most. Time for him to make that ‘frightening’ record truly terrifying.