Jurgen Klopp admits Diogo Jota is surpassing even Liverpool's expectations as he outlined the difference the Portuguese forward is making for his team.
Jota moved on to 20 goals for the season for the first time in his career when heading in Joe Gomez's cross for the first goal in the 2-0 Premier League win over Watford at Anfield on Saturday.
His tally of 14 top-flight strikes is bettered only by team-mate Mohamed Salah with half of his overall total having been Liverpool's opening goal in a match.
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And Klopp believes Jota - who started on the left flank at the weekend but regularly drifted into central positions - has more than proven his worth since his £45million transfer from Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 2020.
"It was always clear that Diogo is not a pure winger, Diogo is a striker who can play on the wing and defend the wing," said the Liverpool boss. "Both wings, thank God. He played for us all three positions up front and did always really well.
"He is that guy. It was for sure always in him, I said it a couple of times, at Wolves he had a different job and he did that job that good that we thought, we want him. And since he came in he improved a lot. That is a little to do with his age, he is growing into the top world-class striker role step by step and he is delivering for Portugal pretty consistently which is a difficult job to do with all the offensive talent they have, so he is actually the player we thought he would be and also a little bit better."
Klopp added of Saturday's game: "In a game like this it is really important that the boys played the game and not the position. That means you have to end up in these kinds of situations.
"Where we struggle sometimes is being too static. This (first goal) was a very fluent situation where Diogo was high up, a great cross and then if there is nobody there it is just a cross with no outcome. A great goal."
