There will come a point – perhaps this summer, perhaps next, perhaps further into the future – when Liverpool’s next manager will face the problem of finding a successor for one of their greatest ever players.
Replacing Mohamed Salah may be the impossible task. In the last month, however, Diogo Jota has shown he can deputise adeptly for the Egyptian as he has first been at the Africa Cup of Nations and then injured.
Darwin Nunez can be entertainingly erratic, but Jota is more clinical. He is Liverpool’s most reliable scorer in Salah’s absence; indeed he actually has a higher chance conversion rate than the talisman. He has taken on Salah’s mantle in another respect: Harvey Elliott, Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo have all had their minutes on the right flank in recent weeks. Jota, though, has exerted the most impact.
Moved to the right in the half-time reshuffle at Bournemouth, Jota then scored twice in a role he rarely occupies. He struck as a starter against Chelsea, powering his way between Thiago Silva and Benoit Badiashile. Jota has been Anfield’s great disruptor, the man who broke up Jurgen Klopp’s definitive front three of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and
Salah, the forward with the uncanny ability to ghost into space to elude defenders.
That positional sense, that reading of the game and that movement are qualities that have long endeared him to Klopp. If the former director of football Michael Edwards merited much of the credit for signing Salah, Klopp’s skills as a scout came to the fore when Jota was recruited. Liverpool did not have to fight off the super-clubs for his signature in 2020, but Klopp had seen something in the Portuguese that others didn’t.