Diogo Jota was the joint-top scorer of headed goals in the Premier League two seasons ago but a Liverpool tactical shift has changed the picture for the Portugal star.
Diogo Jota has developed into one of the most ambidextrous goal scorers around. The 40 goals he has scored with his feet in the Premier League for Liverpool and their next opponents Wolverhampton Wanderers have an almost even split of 22 and 18 between right and left.
Since signing for the Reds, the Portuguese international has added headed goals to his game. While he had bagged one in the Primeira Liga with Porto and another in the Europa League for Wolves, his Premier League ledger was blank for headers until he moved to Liverpool.
Jota improved so rapidly that no player in the division topped his tally of four headed goals in 2021/22. Yet perhaps he merely benefitted from an uncharacteristic hot streak, as his strike against Nottingham Forest in April was his only one in the league since that productive campaign. Equally, his true level may have been undermined by a change in how the Reds attack.
Crossing has been a huge part of Liverpool’s arsenal for many years, even before the days of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson. Brendan Rodgers’ Reds assisted 21 league goals in this fashion as they almost won the league title in 2013/14, a total which has not been topped in England’s top flight since.
The closest to doing so were Jürgen Klopp’s league champions six years later, with 20 of their 85 goals being assisted via a cross. Even though it hadn’t created as many that way in the years since, Liverpool’s rate of crosses attempted had remained relatively constant.
Across the first seven full seasons under Klopp, the Reds played an average of 21.6 crosses per game. This figure for each individual campaign only varied between 19 and 24 too. Yet in 2023/24 Liverpool have averaged 14, and in open play alone their rate has more than halved.
As alluded to in the above tweet, Liverpool has played over a quarter of its match time with only 10 men so far this season. Any data from their fledgling 2023/24 campaign has to be viewed accordingly, though the drop in crossing is so significant that it is worth thinking about further. After all, Alexander-Arnold completed the most crosses in open play in the Premier League last season, yet he, Robertson and Mohamed Salah have one apiece this term and that’s your lot for players from the Reds.
As effective as these men have proven to be with deliveries from wide areas, it perhaps isn’t a surprise that a club which has had so much success with data analysis may choose to lessen their reliance upon crosses. Chances created via that method are converted 10.9 per cent of the time in the Premier League (since 2009/10), while opportunities from through balls, though much rarer and harder to produce, lead to goals a quarter of the time.
After four matches, Salah has already provided two assists in this fashion, putting him halfway to matching his previous personal best from 2021/22. The Egyptian delivered beautiful passes between the defensive lines of Chelsea and Newcastle, enabling Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez to score respectively.
Salah also played a through ball to tee up Jota for the equalizer at Southampton on the final day of last season, showing the Portuguese forward can benefit from such deliveries. However, it was Jota’s only clear-cut chance from that type of delivery in the entirety of 2022/23, when he had two from crosses even though they are harder to fashion that way.
In the grand scheme of things, blunting Jota’s effectiveness with his head is only likely to cost a few goals per season and through balls should prove more valuable. Liverpool would be wise not to forget about this asset, though, as attacking variety can make a difference when it needs it most.
