Steve Nicol has suggested that Diogo Jota may become unhappy if he’s not regularly starting games for Liverpool this season.
The Portugal international had a great campaign for the Reds last term but with the arrival of Darwin Nunez at Anfield this summer, the ex-Wolves man may see minutes from the start hard to come by.
Nunez is expected to begin the campaign down the middle of Jurgen Klopp’s front three, with Luis Diaz and Mo Salah on either side of the Uruguayan – something that Nicol believes Jota may not settle for.
“Will he be happy as a super-sub? I would expect not,” Nicol told ESPN (via HITC).
“In his mind, if I am him, I am thinking, ‘This is a big game for me because I don’t want to be coming off the bench all the time’. So I think this is an important year for him.”
Our No. 20 chipped in with some vitally important goals last term – his brace against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final booked us a spot in the final against Chelsea and he also scored the only goal in our FA Cup quarter-final defeat of Nottingham Forest – two competitions that we went onto win.
The 25-year-old also scored goals at the Etihad, Old Trafford and Goodison Park and finished the season with 21 goals and eight assists in 55 appearances (across all competitions).
We’re hoping to once again be as competitive as possible on all fronts this season, so you’d expect that all of the squad will earn their fair share of minutes during the campaign.
Jota is a unique player somewhat – he can operate on the left wing or centrally and you always know that he’ll work his socks off.
We can see where Nicol is coming from, but we certainly think Jota has a huge role to play at the club and will definitely earn enough game time to keep him happy.
Hopefully he can pick up more silverware with the club this term, but we’ll just have to wait and see!