A Liverpool player is top of the shooting statistics. No, not that one.
Diogo Jota is five behind Mohamed Salah in the race for the Golden Boot. But the difference comes from the spot: the Egyptian has scored five penalties.
And a look at non-penalty expected goals per 95 minutes (npxG/95), which reflects the quality of chances a player has, shows Jota on 0.73 to Salah’s 0.63. Take away those who have played under 150 minutes in the Premier League this season and he is the leader.
Ignore those who have played under 310 minutes and Jota’s gap of 0.10 – one expected goal every 10 games – over Salah gives him a huge lead. Among Premier League regulars, Liverpool occupy the podium positions with Sadio Mane third at 0.59.
Dangerous Diogo Jota
The size of Jota’s advantage over anyone outside Anfield (his Portugal team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo, with 0.57) indicates two things: how good Liverpool are at creating opportunities and Jota’s excellence at eluding defenders.
He is not always a clinical finisher and he has underperformed his expected goals (xG) of 15.80. His greatest skill is getting into scoring positions unmarked. In the Premier League this season, only Mane has a higher non-penalty xG in total. Only Christian Pulisic (0.21) has a higher non-penalty xG per shot than Jota (0.20).
Time and again, he gets into dangerous areas. He does it while playing off the left flank or in the middle of Liverpool’s attack, while arguably being neither winger nor striker. Instead, he is the relentless roving menace.
He has had the fifth most shots in the league after four players –Salah, Harry Kane, Ronaldo and Mane – who have all played substantially more minutes.
On average, Jota’s shots come from just 11.4 yards; by way of comparison, and excluding defenders whose only efforts came from set-pieces, the only forwards whose average shot distance is less are Pulisic and two target men, Chris Wood and Christian Benteke.
Jota shares some characteristics with Salah, another shotaholic. The Portuguese has 3.42 shots per 95 minutes. Salah leads the way with 4.39, but the next three – Ronaldo, Riyad Mahrez and Hakim Ziyech – are all likelier to take long shots than Jota.
His return of 1.81 on target per 95 is bettered only by Salah and (just) Ronaldo and the departed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Is Jota a Firmino replacement?
Part of the intriguing element of Jota is that he is both the replacement for Roberto Firmino and the anti-Firmino. If the Brazilian was the false nine who sacrificed himself so Salah and Mane could score more, Jota displays a similar hunger for goals. If Firmino got involved in other parts of the pitch, Jota does less.
He averages 42.9 touches per 95 minutes in the Premier League this season. Only one Liverpool player has a lower figure: goalkeeper Alisson. Firmino is at 58.1, more than Salah or Mane.
Much of the difference between them comes in the middle third of the pitch, where Firmino averages 29.0 touches to Jota’s 18.7. The Portuguese, however, has fractionally more in the penalty area.
Look at their passing statistics and it is a similar story.
Jota averages fewer completed passes (21.3 per 95 minutes) than any Liverpool player except Divock Origi. His pass completion rate (73.5 percent) is the lowest in Jurgen Klopp’s squad whereas Firmino (34.1 completed passes at 79.3 percent) is above Salah and Mane in both charts.
Jota is a low-touch, high-impact player. He is also the specialist predator.
He chases defenders – his 483 pressures is the most in the Liverpool squad, and the most of any forward at a top-eight team, while an average of 22.8 per 95 minutes is more even than the famously industrious Firmino – but he contributes less on the ball than Liverpool’s other attackers.
Remarkably, he only has two Premier League assists since the start of the 2019-20 season. That reflects poor finishing by both Liverpool and Wolves teammates – his expected assists over that time is 8.08 – but in the same time, Firmino has made 18 top-flight goals.
Part of Klopp’s success has been to oversee an evolution from a team with two main scorers and a selfless support act to one with three, to take the false nine out and end the inverted forward line without coming at a cost to creativity.
If it shows that others can compensate – and Andy Robertson has three assists for Jota this season, just as Mane did last season – the presence of a Liverpool one-two-three in the assist tables, courtesy of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Salah and the Scot suggests Jota’s ability to score goals is more valuable than Firmino’s capacity to make them.
Perhaps the Portuguese was bought as a back-up, but maybe he has prompted Klopp to change tack by forcing his way into the team with a combination of goals and goalscoring opportunities.
