Diogo Jota has been a goalscoring machine since he signed for Liverpool at the beginning of last season. Exclude penalties and he has scored more frequently for the Reds than Mohamed Salah has across his time with the club, which takes some doing.
But if one wants to be critical, he hasn’t created enough goals for his teammates. Indeed, his assist for Bruno Fernandes in Portugal’s 2-0 win over North Macedonia on Tuesday was greeted with surprise, such is the rarity with which he’s collected them for Liverpool.
In his 69 appearances for the Reds, Jota has only supplied three assists, and one of them was entirely unintentional. To all intents and purposes, Luis Diaz created Takumi Minamino’s goal against Cardiff City, but as the ball brushed Jota on its path between the two, he was credited with an assist.
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What the Portuguese forward might lack in volume of creating goals, he hasn’t lacked for in big game impact. The only assist of Jota’s debut campaign with Liverpool occurred when he set up Salah for a goal in the Champions League last 16 second leg win over RB Leipzig.
The same players then connected for the fourth goal in the unforgettable 5-0 hammering of Manchester United last October. In both instances, the chances Jota created were classified by Opta as ‘clear-cut’ (those where you would expect the attacker to score) so it was little surprise that Salah was able to put them away. His assist for Fernandes fell into the same category too.
In fact, Jota has created far more clear-cut chances than you might assume for a player with so few assists. Again, he got one for Minamino versus Cardiff on a technicality but during his time with the Reds he has also set up three for Sadio Mane, two for Roberto Firmino and a further pair for Salah, plus one for Kaide Gordon against Arsenal in the League Cup. They’ve all been missed.
Even though such chances theoretically favour the player taking the shot rather than the goalkeeper, those which Jota have set up have been converted at roughly 11 percent below average rate, or 18 if we disregard his fortunate FA Cup effort against the Bluebirds.
As those which went begging include one in the 3-3 draw at Brentford and another in the 1-0 loss at Leicester, it’s not just Jota who will wish he had created a few more goals from the high-quality chances he has provided. His relative lack of assists certainly highlights the fickle nature of finishing.
For instance, he has two assists from the eight clear-cut chances with which he has been credited as creating this season, yet Curtis Jones and Joel Matip both have two from two. Kostas Tsimikas has seen four of the nine big chances he has set up this season hit the back of the net – with two of them converted by Jota – while Jordan Henderson has a remarkable five assists from six clear-cut chances created.
Liverpool’s number 20 hasn’t just been unlucky when compared to his teammates either. Per FBRef, there are only five players in England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain who have a bigger difference between their expected and actual assists in league football this season. As one of the quintet is Robert Lewandowski, it clearly happens to the best of them ( and reported Reds target Raphinha is another player in this unfortunate group).
But then Andy Robertson is third highest in the overachievers list at the opposite end of the table, and Liverpool as a team are finishing well and converting more chances than they theoretically should. Even so, the surprise should not be that Jota created a goal whilst on international duty, it’s that he hasn’t assisted more times for the Reds. The former Wolves man has certainly deserved to.
