Diogo Jota is Robbie Fowler's Liverpool heir as Jurgen Klopp explains progress

As Diogo Jota ghosted from nowhere between two bewildered defenders to score with sublime instinct, Anfield experienced a shiver of recognition.

It was pure Fowler. A movement of musical artistry, a glancing header after an unseen run in front of his disorientated marker into the far corner. A classic striker’s goal. Robbie Fowler’s instinctive, at times un-markable, movement in the penalty area was his superpower, the quality which marked him out as the best goalscorer of his generation, and a Liverpool legend.

Yet Jota arrived on Merseyside as a wide player, a goalscoring one it’s true, but not a natural striker. Nowhere near. Watford though, will testify he certainly is that now…as 20 goals this season - for the first time in his career - also illustrates.

His beautiful header won this game (which Fabinho’s late penalty confirmed) and briefly put Liverpool on top of the Premier League. In 50 starts for the Reds now, he has 33 goals. Those are the statistics of a clinical finisher. So did Liverpool spot something in him at Wolves that no other elite level club did? Did their increasingly famous analytics department identify something hidden, or did Jurgen Klopp’s coaching team develop that talent.

It was a bit of both, the manager said, as he reflected on a “world class talent” that has ghosted through into the higher echelons of the Premier League scoring charts almost as unseen as he is on the pitch. “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. Both wings, thank God," Klopp explained.

“It was for sure always in him. I said 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