'Competition for places makes us push ourselves' - Diogo Jota
Diogo Jota feels that competition for places is inspiring Liverpool's forwards after the Reds concluded their pre-season fixtures with a 3-1 defeat of SV Darmstadt 98.
Mohamed Salah and Luis Diaz joined Jota on the scoresheet at Deepdale on Monday evening as Jürgen Klopp’s side made it 18 goals netted in five friendlies this summer.
With Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez also impressing during pre-season, Klopp heads into Sunday’s Premier League opener at Chelsea with five in-form senior attackers to choose from – a wealth of options Jota believes can only benefit the club in 2023-24.
The Portugal international told Liverpoolfc.com: “I think inside competition is always good, [you] push yourself to the limit and it’s good for us because we have the options.
“We will have loads of games and will need everyone, so it’s very helpful that we can be like that.”
Read the rest of our post-Darmstadt interview with Jota below.
On his assessment of the game…
It was a great start to the game – we scored two very quick, good high-pressing as well, controlling the game. I think their goal was a bit against the [run of play], but in the end it was a good performance from us and the last test so we go now.
On Diaz, who rounded off the win with a sensational flicked volley…
He’s unpredictable, he’s that kind of winger who goes one-v-one and can create chances from nothing and it’s very helpful for us when we reach, especially the final third, to be able to do something with the ball. That’s always helpful and I think last season he had an injury as well and hopefully this season he can crack on and show us what he has to offer.
On what he has taken from pre-season…
A lot, especially physically obviously we’ve been working a lot [on that]. The way we want to play is always intense so that’s key for us to improve and I think we showed offensively we created some good goals but we also conceded some. Today it was only one but we want to improve that as well because if you don’t concede you are always closer to winning.
On the season opener at Chelsea…
We feel that we want to show something different from last season. They have a new coach so they will start from scratch and they can be dangerous but we always know that playing at Stamford Bridge is not easy at all, so it will be a great start of the Premier League [season].