It’s 10 months since Diogo Jota last scored a goal for Liverpool. The last time he found the back of the net for the Reds, he was cancelling out Kevin De Bruyne's early opener for Man City at the Etihad as Jurgen Klopp's side continued to chase an unprecedented quadruple.
A victory would have placed Liverpool in the driving seat in the Premier League title race. Instead, they had to settle for a 2-2 draw after twice coming from behind before missing out on the title by a solitary point on the final day of the season.
Looking back, it seems rather surreal that Jota wasn’t on the scoresheet at all in the final two months of the season, never mind the fact he has failed to score since, as the Reds’ quadruple hopes ended as a domestic cup double. That strike at the Etihad was his 21st goal of the campaign, with the Portuguese already enjoying the most prolific year of his career.
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Since then, he has gone 306 days without a goal. That total will rise to at least 309, with the forward looking to feature in Monday night’s Merseyside derby. Granted injuries have been a major contributor to the longevity of such a drought, but he has still gone 21 games without a goal for Liverpool with 11 of them coming from the start.
Before his rot, he boasted 21 goals from 42 games last season with an overall Reds record standing at 34 goals in 72 matches. His goalless run now leaves him with 34 goals from 93 games, and while it is still more than respectable, it doesn’t quite pack the same punch.
Perhaps we can trace the start of his problems back 12 months, though, for when his fortunes started to turn. On this day in 2022, Jota scored a brace as Liverpool ran out 2-0 winners over Leicester City at Anfield. Such goals were his 16th and 17th from the season, and came in his 30th outing of the campaign.
With Roberto Firmino repeatedly being struck down by injury last season, the Portuguese had established himself as first-choice in Klopp’s starting XI. Yet the Reds had just signed Luis Diaz from FC Porto, with the clash with the Foxes his Premier League debut and first Liverpool start. Meanwhile, Mohamed Salah watched on from the bench while Sadio Mane was absent off the back of the Africa Cup of Nations final just four days earlier.
Both were back in the starting XI for the Reds’ next match as they won 1-0 away at Burnley, with Jota benched. And while the forward would return to the starting XI for a Champions League round-of-16 trip to Inter Milan, an ankle injury forced him off at half-time.
He would only miss two matches in less than a fortnight before returning as a substitute in the League Cup final against Chelsea, having scored the goals against Arsenal to fire Liverpool to Wembley in the first place. In hindsight, perhaps Jota was rushed back, with him not reaching the same heights during the remainder of the campaign.
A seven-game goalless run was ended by the forward scoring in three successive games against Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, and Watford in mid-March, before the trip to the Etihad took that run to four goals from five games. But while he started alongside Salah and Mane in Manchester, the Senegalese's re-positioning as a central striker and Diaz’s emergence as first-choice on the left saw Jota drop back to a Reds rotational option.
He would start on the bench in the FA Cup semi-final against Man City, the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals against Villarreal before being replaced at half-time with Liverpool 2-0 down and the aggregate scores level in Spain, as well as for both the FA Cup final against Chelsea and Champions League final against Real Madrid. Perhaps if he had continued to deliver the goals in those final weeks, the season would have finished more successfully.
The Portuguese will have no doubt wondered how he ended up on the outside looking in at the likes of Wembley and Paris, and perhaps privately queried Klopp's reduced usage of him. Yet today's calls for his inclusion were somewhat lacking during last year's run-in, whether you consider him harshly replaced when he had been scoring for fun, or a player struggling to hit top form again after injury.
When looking back, the 2021/22 campaign has been the highlight of Jota’s career to date, but very much like the Reds’ own feelings on the historic season, it’s also one that promised so much more.
Since then, Jota has been unable to catch a break. Suffering a hamstring injury on international duty last summer which saw him miss the start of pre-season, he aggravated the setback upon his return to training, with it a small consolation that he was at least able to sign a new long-term contract with the club during his time on the sidelines.
As a result, he had to wait until the Merseyside derby trip to Goodison Park in early-September to make his playing return, emerging as a substitute late on as Everton held Liverpool to a 0-0 draw. It would be the Reds’ only Premier League fixture for a month as clashes with Wolves and Chelsea were postponed following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
Coming off the bench in the heavy 4-1 defeat to Napoli, he would make his first start of the season as Liverpool clinched a late 2-1 victory over Ajax, with the two Champions League matches the Reds' only other fixtures in September. In truth, the Premier League postponements were both a blessing and a curse, robbing the Portuguese of the opportunity to gain rhythm through game-time, but providing him with an opportunity to build up fitness in training behind the scenes.
He was rewarded with a late goal from the bench in the September international break, scoring in Portugal's 4-0 Nations League victory over Czech Republic but it remains his only goal of the 2022/23 season to date.
Come October and Liverpool's Premier League return, Jota would be utilised as a substitute in the 3-3 draw with Brighton, before impressing from the start alongside Salah, Diaz, and summer-signing Darwin Nunez in a new-look four-man attack in the 2-0 victory over Rangers.
Unfortunately, the system would prove to be less effective away at Arsenal as Jota kept his starting place in a 3-2 defeat. Having scored seven goals from his previous six meetings with the Gunners for the Reds, with five of those strikes coming at the Emirates, it marked his first Premier League appearance for the club when he had failed to score against the North London outfit.
A substitute in Liverpool's 7-1 win away at Rangers, Jota then started in attack as the Reds hosted Man City at Anfield. With Diaz now a long-term absentee with a knee injury, the stage was set for the Portuguese to reclaim his starting role and make the most of his time to shine. Alas, while he would help Klopp’s men record their highlight of the season as they ran out 1-0 winners, the game also stopped the forward in his tracks as he was forced off late on with a serious calf injury which would rule him out of the 2022 World Cup.
“Jota will be out for a long time, we talk about months,” Klopp confirmed to reporters a few days after the win. “We will see - I don't want to put a number on it because I hope there is a positive moment in rehab, but it will be long.
“It's Diogo and he's surprisingly okay, so far. Smart boy and reflective. He knew when we carried him off the pitch when we came out on the pitch. He explained what happened and he knew it was a serious one and impactful for his World Cup dreams.
“Jota will miss the World Cup, really serious injury in the calf and we have to recover him. The process starts and that's it. Very sad news for the boy, for us and Portugal.”
As well as Portugal’s World Cup campaign, as they lost in the quarter-finals to Morocco out in Qatar, Jota has missed Liverpool’s last 18 matches. They have fallen to defeat seven times in his absence and suffered embarrassing defeats to Nottingham Forest, Leeds United, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion, and Wolves as the Reds’ season goes from bad to worse with new lows seemingly around every corner.
Klopp has also signed another new forward in Cody Gakpo, joining from PSV Eindhoven in January. But unlike Diaz, he has been unable to have an immediate impact as Liverpool continue to struggle. With the Reds’ hopes of qualifying for Europe, never mind next season’s Champions League, continuing to dwindle, there is a desperate hope that Jota can now be the club’s saviour.
“Diogo is the closest, he trains now normal already for two days, so another three days [of] training is possible for him,” Klopp confirmed on Friday as he revealed the forward could return to the matchday squad against Everton on Monday night. “I think he is in contention for the squad, I would say, but we have to wait a little bit.”
The Portuguese could be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu, again preparing to return in a Merseyside derby after months on the sidelines. Back-to-back victories over AFC Bournemouth and Newcastle United had seemingly got Liverpool back on track the last time he returned, following on from disappointing draws with Fulham and Crystal Palace, as well as defeat to Manchester United. Yet that now pales in comparison to the Reds’ current woes.
Given such struggles, the temptation is surely there to reinstate Jota as quickly as possible. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all, and there is a hope he can score the goals and provide the high press in attack to reignite their fortunes. But the fact that Kopites are relying on such to rescue them, from a player enduring a 10-month goalscoring drought riddled by injury no less, shows the depths of their desperation.
Ultimately, Liverpool have to tread carefully with the 26-year-old. He has already suffered one injury recurrence this season and is playing catch-up after a second lengthy lay-off of the campaign.
He has plenty of time to make up for at least, with no player in the Reds squad suffering more in the aftermath of their flirtation with greatness over the past 12 months than Jota. But he is returning for a very different Liverpool than the one he last scored for 10 months ago, with them now boasting an ageing squad stuck in transition.
Yet he is a rare player in Klopp’s squad enjoying his peak years. Admittedly it is probably too much to ask for a goalscoring return against Everton, as the forward looks to end his drought and help the Reds return to winning ways. But he can feel wronged for how last season finished on an individual basis.
Not content with bridesmaid duty for the biggest nights of his career, Jota will be hungry for such occasions again. And with a bigger point to prove than most, he will be looking to set the standards and drag his team-mates back to such heights once more. No pressure, Diogo.
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