Liverpool sign Jota ahead of Blues clash
New signing Diogo Jota has arrived at Liverpool hoping to complement their fearsome attacking forward line, not displace it.
After weeks of intimating there would be no major signings this summer, in the space of 24 hours the Reds have brought in the 23-year-old from Wolves and Bayern Munich midfielder Thiago Alcantara for a combined initial sum of £61-million.
While Thiago brings a different dimension to Jurgen Klopp’s midfield, Jota offers versatility in attacking areas which existing back-up Divock Origi does not.
However, Jota is hoping to make it a fantastic four up front rather than taking the place of either Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino or Sadio Mane.
“They are world-class players. Every match, they try to win. They score a lot of goals and they work together,” he said.
“I want to be one more piece to join that three. That’s what I will do.
“They are obviously more experienced than me, so the first stage is to connect with them, to learn with them.
“Hopefully I can be a good help for them and the club to win games.”
Jota, who is understood to have signed a five-year contract on a deal which could rise to £45m, arrived hours after young defender Ki-jana Hoever made the move in the opposite direction for an initial £9m with £4.5m in add-ons
Within the space of a day Klopp has strengthened his squad significantly in the final two-thirds of the pitch as he looks to give the club every chance of retaining their Premier League title.
He spoke about the need for greater competition in what is expected to be an unusually congested season, saying: “I cannot prepare for a normal season when a season is not normal. Rotation is absolutely necessary, because it just doesn’t work otherwise.”
But he also has an eye on the future and believes Jota, who has scored just 16 goals across his last 67 Premier League appearances, has plenty of room for improvement.
“He’s a player who gives us so many options to use him,” said the Reds boss, whose side face an early test of their champion credentials with a trip to Chelsea today.
“He’s 23 years old, still far away from being kind of a finished article, so much potential. He has the speed, he can combine, can defend, can press.
“It makes it just more unpredictable and gives us real options for different systems because he can play pretty much all three positions up front in a 4-3-3, if we play with four midfielders he can play both wings.
“He has some natural things which we have in our game, like this desire and the greed and the direction, and he is part of this unbelievable Portuguese generation in the moment, where they have really a lot of obviously quite skilled players,” said Klopp.
“They are a special team; the way they press, the intensity that they put into the game is just another level and that’s what I want to be part of – that anger to play the game and to score goals,” he added.
“I think that’s a great way to play the game and that’s the way I want to play as well.
“I think there was no doubt about Liverpool being the best team in the league last season by some distance.
“The intensity they put into the games… they were just unbelievable. They were all over the place.
“It felt like they were playing with more players than the other teams. Hopefully we can do the same again this year with me being a part of it,” added Klopp
Hakim Ziyech, Ben Chilwell and Thiago Silva will all miss out for Chelsea today. The new recruits must wait for their debuts for the Blues, with Ziyech still nursing a knee complaint, Chilwell a heel issue and Silva lacking fitness.
Christian Pulisic is still to shake off a hamstring problem, but striker Timo Werner is fit, having eased past a dead leg picked up at Brighton on Monday.
Silva, meanwhile, is undergoing a crash course in English to help kick-start his Chelsea career. The Brazil defender is not yet match-sharp, so will not make his debut at Stamford Bridge today.
But while the 35-year-old is hard at work on Chelsea’s Cobham training pitches, the former Paris St Germain centre-back has also been hitting the books in a bid to fast-track his adjustment to life in England.
“Thiago doesn’t speak the language that well, but that’s something we’re working on very quickly,” said Chelsea boss Frank Lampard.
“But we have a lot of players in the squad who are multilingual and will help with that. He already seems very intent on helping the team,” added Lampard.