Is this the season Diogo Jota scores 20+ goals in all competitions?

 Diogo Jota (£4.2m) is a classic Dream Team tease.

At various times over the last three seasons, the Portugal international has burned brightly enough to be worthy of a spot in a successful Dream Team XI – although these moments have often been fleeting.

Between the start of 2018/19 and the end of 2019/20, he scored 26 goals for Wolves in all competitions.

As is the case with some other players, Jota’s goals generally came through spells of clinical form.

For example, he scored nine goals in 14 Europa League fixtures the season before last as Wolves made it to the quarter-finals.

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getty2021/22: The season of Jota[/caption]

After a £41million transfer to Liverpool, Jota soon embarked on perhaps his most impressive spell of form yet, scoring eight goals in eight games including a hat-trick in the Champions League against Atalanta.

However, injuries blighted the rest of his campaign and he was unable to recapture the same momentum, effectively ending his Dream Team viability.

With a new season for a blank canvas, the 24-year-old is at it again after scoring in each of the Reds’ first two games.

Only three forwards have more points than Jota’s 16 at this very early stage and Dream Team gaffers will be tempted to back a player known for scoring goals in clusters.

His ownership right now is 7.2% which, while respectable, is dwarfed by that of Mohamed Salah (£6.3m, 64.5% ownership) and Sadio Mane (£5.5m), 17.1% ownership).

The bigger question at hand is: can Jota maintain his current form (and fitness) for a whole season?

Jota followed up his goal against Norwich with a deft header against Burnley

Nobody expects him to score a goal every game – the record tally for a 38-game Premier League campaign is 32, achieved by Salah in 2017/18 – but he seems well set to score 20+ goals (all comps) in a season for the first time in his career.

In 2020/21, Jota averaged a goal every 123.7 minutes in the league – a strike rate that would have earned him the Golden Boot had he played every minute of every league game.

While it’s unrealistic to expect him to play every minute of every game this season, 20+ goals seems attainable when accounting for rest and rotation.

Essentially, everything points to a career-best season for Jota if he can stay fit.

If that’s the case then he will quickly evolve from a Dream Team tease into a long-term top-tier asset.