“He played a little too much for Portugal for my taste” – Liverpool boss Klopp assesses two-goal hero Jota after Arsenal win

Arsenal 0-3 Liverpool

Diogo Jota continues to impress since his recent return from injury, after scoring twice from the substitutes bench as Liverpool produced an impressive performance to beat Arsenal on Saturday evening.

After a goalless first half, the visitors finally turned their dominance into a deserved lead when Jota headed in Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross on 64 minutes. Mohamed Salah then added a second before Jota put the seal on the three points with an emphatic finish from close range to continue his recent excellent form in front of goal.

“It doesn’t matter if you start in the starting XI or on the bench, you need to be ready to make an impact,” the former Porto man said. “That’s what I did today and that’s what I want to do always.

“[It was] very important. I said after the last game, to think about higher spots in the table we need to do our job [which] is to win every single game until the end. I think if we do our job we have a high chance to be there because it is very hard to win in the Premier League. Today we did our job, let’s go to the next one.”

Meanwhile, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was asked about the Portugal man’s impact from the bench. “In finishing, yes, you can say that,” said the German. “But I'm not sure if there could have been another player in the position as well, but I don't want to take anything away from Diogo because he's in a really good moment.

“We had to make decisions. Look, Diogo played a little bit too much for Portugal for my taste – not criticism of Portugal, just he was long injured, we played him immediately because Bobby was injured and he played too much for us already. Then he went to Portugal and the last two games were really intense, so he felt it a little bit.”

By Sean Gillen

@SeanGillen9