Jurgen Klopp paid tribute to Luis Diaz after the £49m January signing overcame a tricky afternoon against Norwich City to score his first goal for Liverpool.
The Reds fell behind to a Milot Rashica strike shortly after the restart, prompting the German to introduce Divock Origi and Thiago Alcantara as Liverpool changed formation.
Moving Sadio Mane back to his natural left-wing position, Diaz went central alongside Origi as the Reds swapped to a 4-4-2 formation with Klopp admitting the change was necessary after Norwich had surprised them tactically.
“You analyse an opponent and you use the last game they played and some other games and you see some things which you want to use,” he told reporters after the final whistle.
“But during the game you realise they analysed their own game as well and changed that completely so you have to find other ways.
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“We could have scored earlier in the game with two massive chances from Kostas and the header from Virgil when he squared the ball.
"I thought there were two players from us who could finish it off, I don’t know why we didn’t do that and you don’t score.
“At half-time, it’s not that we said we have to change this, this and this. We showed one longer sequence where we played exactly like we should have played all the time. We should have done it more often.
“We tried that in the second half but we conceded the goal and we could see in the few minutes after, it was hectic. The atmosphere was hectic and everybody got a bit nervous.”
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He continued: “We thought it made sense to make that early change and calm it down again with Thiago and the system change to 4-4-2. You have to finish the situations off.
“The first goal was not the biggest chance we had in the game, Sadio just scored it with an incredible finish.
“The other goals were really beautiful as well. It was complicated. It’s Premier League, you can see the quality the other teams have but that makes it so special when you win.”
Diaz was handed his second start for Liverpool as he came back into the starting XI following injuries to Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino.
And while the Colombia international was not as effective as he had been in his previous outings since joining the Reds from FC Porto, Klopp had a message for the winger after scoring his maiden Liverpool goal.
“You could see, in the two games Luis had played where he came on or played, he was absolutely incredible but today it was hard work for him as well,” he said.
“It was a tricky one, a tricky encounter.
“Staying on the pitch, staying in the game shows the real quality. We changed system and brought Luis in the centre with Sadio in his natural position. Sadio scored anyway in the centre and Luis made a wonderful run in the centre as well.
“It’s good, he’s just an outstanding talent. A really, really good player. You should ask him! I can’t remember my first goal and it was probably really nice!
“I think he is very happy. He should be!”
