Diogo Jota is threatening to do what he did for Bruno Fernandes at Liverpool

Diogo Jota has been a goalscoring machine since he signed for Liverpool at the beginning of last season. Exclude penalties and he has scored more frequently for the Reds than Mohamed Salah has across his time with the club, which takes some doing.

But if one wants to be critical, he hasn’t created enough goals for his teammates. Indeed, his assist for Bruno Fernandes in Portugal’s 2-0 win over North Macedonia on Tuesday was greeted with surprise, such is the rarity with which he’s collected them for Liverpool.

In his 69 appearances for the Reds, Jota has only supplied three assists, and one of them was entirely unintentional. To all intents and purposes, Luis Diaz created Takumi Minamino’s goal against Cardiff City, but as the ball brushed Jota on its path between the two, he was credited with an assist.

What the Portuguese forward might lack in volume of creating goals, he hasn’t lacked for in big game impact. The only assist of Jota’s debut campaign with Liverpool occurred when he set up Salah for a goal in the Champions League last 16 second leg win over RB Leipzig.

The same players then connected for the fourth goal in the unforgettable 5-0 hammering of Manchester United last October. In both instances, the chances Jota created were classified by Opta as ‘clear-cut’ (those where you would expect the attacker to score) so it was little surprise that Salah was able to put them away. His assist for Fernandes fell into the same category too.

In fact, Jota has created far more clear-cut chances than you might assume for a player with so few assists. Again, he got one for Minamino versus Cardiff on a technicality but during his time with the Reds he has also set up three for Sadio Mane, two for Roberto Firmino and