The Athletic’s Liverpool reporter James Pearce and The Redmen TV’s Chris Pajak discussed the Reds’ transfer window following Monday’s deadline on a video that was recently posted to The Redmen TV YouTube channel. During this video, they spent some time talking about Diogo Jota’s move to Anfield from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The 23-year-old attacker joined the Reds from Wolves in a deal worth a transfer fee of £41m, while there were also add-ons included in the deal that could potentially see the Portugal international’s transfer fee rise to £45m, as per the BBC.
While discussing his move from Wolves to Liverpool during this recent YouTube video, Pearce shared that Jota’s transfer reminded him somewhat of the deal that saw the Reds sign Sadio Mane from Southampton back in June 2016.
The journalist said: “In the way that Thiago was clearly a break from [Liverpool’s transfer] policy, I think you’d say Jota was well and truly in keeping with the way that Liverpool have tended to do business in terms of – he’s performed at the top level, he knows the Premier League inside-out, but I think Liverpool also feel that there is huge room there for development.
“It does remind me, in a way, [of] the Sadio Mane deal. I remember writing stuff on the day that Liverpool signed Sadio Mane and a number of people replying saying, ‘that’s a crazy amount of money for someone like him, he’s not consistent enough.’
“There weren’t too many other big clubs sniffing around Sadio Mane and I think they see similar qualities in Jota – clearly, Pep Lijnders pushed pretty hard for him to be the one that they ultimately went after and got signed because he knew him well from his early days in Portuguese football. [Jurgen] Klopp had admired him a lot in the games against Wolves last season, I think [Klopp admired] his work ethic and his tactical intelligence as well.”
Do you think Jota can become as good as Mane?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts…
Since joining Liverpool, Mane has been named the African Player of the Year in 2019 and earned a fourth-place finish in the 2019 Ballon d’Or. Mane has also helped the Reds to win the UEFA Champions League, the Premier League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup in his time at Anfield.
With that in mind, it may be fair to say that he has been a successful signing for the Reds and it is high praise from Pearce to compare Jota to him.
Hopefully, for the Reds, Jota can follow a similar path to Mane following his signing and if so, then this could prove to be a great piece of business from Liverpool.