Journalist Dean Jones believes that Diogo Jota is the man to fill Roberto Firmino’s boots at Anfield after the Portuguese has impressed so far during his time at Anfield.
Jota signed for Liverpool in September 2020 and has shone since, scoring 12 times this campaign in 23 Premier League appearances, according to Transfermarkt.
After previously claiming that either Roberto Firmino or Sadio Mane are set to exit Anfield in the summer, Jones believes that the former’s replacement has already been set up by Klopp.
Discussing the idea of Jota replacing Firmino, Jones told GiveMeSport: “I think that’s how he’ll be seen now. He’s done such a good job of fitting in with the system and the connections that he’s made, the way he arrives at the right time to score the goals that he has.
“The style of goals he’s been scoring has been really impressive, his mindset has been perfect in terms of taking time to adapt. I think that he’s the perfect guy to fit into that role, to be honest, right now. It looks like, I’m hearing, Jota will be the guy that steps up.”
TIF Thoughts on Jota replacing Firmino…
Firmino has been part of the deadly trio with Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah in recent seasons and they have been labelled as the best front three in world football at times.
However, Firmino has often been criticised because of his lack of goals. His best Premier League goalscoring campaign was in the 2017/18 season when he scored 15 goals, and Jota is just three goals away from this tally this term, with 13 games left to play.
While Jota has a better goalscoring record than Firmino, it is evident that the Brazilian can supply his teammates with more goals as Jota only has one assist this campaign, when Firmino has more in eight fewer games.
So, if Firmino was to be taken out of the Liverpool side, then there could an argument that the players around him would see a decrease in goals. But this argument has been quickly shut down, because Salah has seen no lack of goals having netted 17 times this campaign.