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Liverpool fans may not be sure what to expect from the club’s latest signing, Diogo Jota. Pep Ljinders, however, has no doubts about what the Portuguese international will bring to the Reds.
Jurgen Klopp’s assistant manager took the press conference ahead of Liverpool’s trip to face Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup earlier this week and praised the former Wolves man. “He is a player at the level of the three forwards technically, a monster who presses”, Lijnders He said. “They have bought it to create solutions for us.”
That’s a huge compliment, particularly when the player has joined arguably the best team in the Premier League in lobbying.
Over the past three seasons, Liverpool have been successful, in terms of regaining possession in five seconds, with 31.1% of their pressures ( via FBRef.com ). It’s an identical hit rate to that posted by Manchester City in that time frame, although the Reds have tried nearly 3,000 more pressures than Pep Guardiola’s side in the process.
Only Bayern Munich (with 33.7 percent), RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen (both with 32.4) have posted better rush success averages than Liverpool since the summer of 2017. There must be some urgent secrets important writings in the German training manual.
Wolves, by contrast, have been far less effective. Of the 94 clubs that have been in the top five leagues in Europe for at least two of the three previous seasons, 66 of them have proven to be better at pushing than the Wolves. Their 26.8% success rate could match Manchester United, but it is a far cry from Liverpool’s efforts.
Still, Ljinders was not wrong in his assessment of Jota, as he has been a pressing monster, and this was especially true last season.
Jota’s average of 22.6 pressures per 90 minutes was more than any Liverpool player, and for players with at least 2,250 minutes, he was 37th in the major leagues on the continent.
The amount of possession a team has is relevant here. Liverpool averaged 63.4% in its title-winning campaign, which was the sixth most in England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
The wolves were in the middle of the pack, at 48.3%, meaning that Jota will have had more opportunities to pressure opponents with the ball than the Reds players. Trying more pressures than the existing Klopp squad does not automatically make you better at pressing.
But its lower 22.2% success rate doesn’t mean it’s necessarily worse at it, either. While a player can pressure an opponent and directly win the ball for himself, he is more likely to force a mistake that a teammate can benefit from.
In other words, urgent success depends more on a player’s equipment than on his own abilities. With guidance from Liverpool’s top-tier data analytics team, you should receive better insight into which opposing players to push for a better chance of success.
And while Jota had more opportunities to pressure the Wolves, the fact that he was able to do so as often as he did shows that he is more than capable of playing for Klopp’s side.
This is evidenced by his best performances in the last two seasons. In Wolves’ 1-1 draw with Manchester United in August 2019, Jota put up a notable 53 pressures.
This coincides with Roberto Firmino’s personal best of the last three seasons, which he achieved against Arsenal and Chelsea in 2018, and surpasses anything the other Reds forwards have achieved.
If you look at the top 15 Premier League performances to press volume for Firmino, Mane, Salah and Jota in the past two seasons, the Portuguese forward has four innings.
Firmino has the lead with five, but Liverpool’s new number 20 has equaled Mane and has two more than Salah. If Liverpool intended to find a new pressure monster, statistics suggest they have definitely found one.
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