Klopp: Diogo Jota growing into a world-class striker

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes Diogo Jota is becoming a world-class striker after the Portugal international reached 20 goals in a season for the first time.

Jota's first-half goal in the 2-0 win over Watford was his 14th in 27 Premier League matches this season and set up a 10th successive top-flight win after Fabinho added a late penalty.

The 25-year-old’s overall strike-rate is 33 in 70 appearances since joining the club in September 2020 and he has proved to be an astute £43million addition to a forward line of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino which was already one of the best on the planet.

"Since he came in he improved a lot, that is a little to do with his age, (but) he is growing into the top world-class striker role step by step," said Klopp.

"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."

Before arriving at Anfield, Jota was viewed as a hard-working wide forward with some individual talent at Wolves but Liverpool’s recruitment team looked beyond that to the player they could mould him into.

And that has evidenced this season in particular as, having never scored more than nine Premier League goals in a single campaign, he is currently only six behind team-mate Salah in the race for the Golden Boot.

"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," added Klopp.

"He played for us all three positions up front and did always really well.

"Where we struggle sometimes is being too static. This (the first goal) was a very fluent situation where Diogo was