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Liverpool’s record with major transfers has been the envy of nearly every club in recent years.
Diogo Jota is just Anfield’s latest success story, having already scored nine goals in red despite making only eight starts for the club.
His record is reminiscent of Mohamed Salah’s fabulous debut season with Liverpool, in which he scored 44 goals, yet Jota is finding the net even more than the Egyptian did in 2017/18.
Between signing that duo of lethal forwards, the Reds have also acquired arguably the best goalkeeper and center-back in the world, while other less heralded transfers like Andy Robertson and Fabinho have added even more world-class skills to Jurgen Klopp’s starting XI. .
But even a team as shrewd as Liverpool on the market have made their mistakes. Often it can be for reasons beyond their control – with injuries in the head – but it can also prove difficult to give new signings the minutes they need to acclimate to football life in England.
For example, the club waited 12 months to make sure they could sign Naby Keita, but the Guinean was rarely able to sustain a long run on the team. He has shown flashes of what he’s been capable of, and while it’s not a transfer flop, it would also be wrong to describe it as an unqualified success.
From the perspective of assessing Michael Edwards’ wheelchair time, it is perhaps more interesting to look at those players who both failed at Anfield and also failed to prove their skills.
Take Iago Aspas, who is seen more as a meme than a former redhead in England these days. If someone takes an incredibly bad corner, you can be sure the Spaniard’s name will be trending on Twitter before you know it, thanks to what he suffered in the infamous 2-0 defeat to Chelsea in 2014.
Yet he has proven time and time again at home that he is more than just the target of any silly corner joke. As OptaJose noted, Aspas created nine chances against Granada in Celta Vigo’s 3-1 win on Sunday, the most he has ever made in a La Liga game and the most by any player in the competition this season.
And he scored goals consistently with the team he represented for most of his career. Aspas scored 12 times in La Liga in the season before joining Liverpool, and since returning to Celta Vigo he has racked up between 14 and 22 each season.for WhoScored).
Maybe if he were given more opportunities in the Premier League, he could ultimately have been a successful signing for the Reds?
It was a similar story for Luis Alberto, who was also with Liverpool in 2013/14 but didn’t make a single league start for the club. He turned 21 that season, so it would have been extraordinary if he had made his way into Brendan Rodgers’ midfield, but he has undoubtedly proved his worth ever since.
Alberto reached the top of the Serie A assists in 2017/18, with 14, and was therefore second last season despite having actually scored one more goal than two years earlier (for FBRef). It wasn’t even a stroke of luck, given that in those two campaigns he generated the most anticipated assists in Italy.
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These players show the brilliance of Liverpool’s data-driven approach to scouting. Players may have failed at Anfield, but their skills were correctly identified prior to their moves to England. Circumstances weren’t right for them to thrive at the time, but that doesn’t make them bad players.
And at a time when Takumi Minamino is fighting for the Reds, having to move to England only to be locked out almost immediately due to the pandemic, the Japanese international would do well to watch Aspas and Alberto.
They have proven to be good players, and as Liverpool have identified him, the same will be true of Minamino.
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