Supporters weren’t too disappointed to see Diogo Jota leave over the summer as his transfer made us £41m. Many feared it would be Raul Jimenez or Adama Traore sold given all the interest from suitors, but we managed to get a lot of money for a player that wasn’t indispensable.
I also think many of us thought Jota would be behind Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane in the pecking order, resulting in the majority of his appearances coming from the bench, but he’s now a regular in the starting lineup and has been outstanding for Liverpool early on. It hurts.
Jota’s hit the ground running at Liverpool
The 23-year-old has made 10 appearances in all competitions for Liverpool, scoring seven goals. He netted on his debut, bagging a late goal from the bench in the Reds’ 3-1 win over Arsenal (September 28) and hasn’t looked back.
Jota’s second goal came in Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Sheffield United (October 24), his third goal came in their Champions League win over FC Midtjylland (October 27), his fourth goal came in their 2-1 win over West Ham United (October 31) and his fifth, sixth and seventh goal came in the Reds’ Champions League win over Atalanta (November 3).
He could hardly wish for a better start to life on Merseyside, but it’s difficult to watch. Jota has averaged a goal every 71 minutes at Liverpool which is considerably better than he managed with us (131 games, 9362 minutes, 44 goals and 19 assists for Wolves) – 212 minutes-per-goal.
Jota’s value already shooting up
The Portuguese international, who boasts three goals and one assist in seven games for his country, was sold for £41m but is now worth €50m-€70m (£45m-£63m), according to CIES Football Observatory. We paid £12m for Jota in 2018, so I thought we did well making £29m (241% profit) extra. Now I’m not so sure.
He clearly had a lot of potential, so maybe we undervalued him in the long run? We demanded in excess of £60m for Jimenez and more than €70m (£63m) for Traore, so Jota was the cheaper alternative for suitors. I suppose we wish him well…
