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Virgil van Dijk believes striker Darwin Nunez is starting to realise the potential which persuaded Liverpool to spend a possible club-record transfer fee on him.<\/p>\n
The Uruguay international endured a testing start to life at Anfield and although he scored 16 goals, the feeling remained he had underperformed.<\/p>\n
He has already played a significant part this season, scoring two late goals as a substitute to beat Newcastle, and with Mohamed Salah on the bench he took responsibility for equalising through a penalty in their eventual 3-1 Europa League victory over LASK in Austria.<\/p>\n
Nunez has three goals and two assists this season but his all-round influence has been felt more than just from that contribution.<\/p>\n
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The Uruguayan, who had missed a couple of earlier chances but was denied a certain goal by a brilliant point-blank save by goalkeeper Tobias Lawal in the first half, also played a role in the second goal with his hold-up play on the halfway line.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s captain believes the 24-year-old is developing into the striker they hoped they were getting when they paid Benfica an initial \u00a364million, which could rise to \u00a385m, last summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has a role to play whether you start or not. Everyone has now seen the potential and the quality he has.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst LASK Darwin was important with the goal. Long may it continue, and with the other boys as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp front, the competition is quite good. They all have to push each other and it\u2019s good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those \u201cother boys\u201d \u2013 quite literally \u2013 was Ben Doak who became Liverpool\u2019s fourth-youngest European player with his first start at the age of 17 years and 314 days.<\/p>\n
The young Scot was given a run in Salah\u2019s right-wing position and showed flashes of his talent despite being starved of opportunities in a poor first-half performance by the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big night for him,\u201d added Van Dijk. \u201cIt was never going to be easy, it was a difficult pitch, but he could have set up at least two goals in the first half where he went past his man like no one was there but unfortunately nobody was on the end of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleased for him and I\u2019m also very excited for him and the future that\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve seen in the last couple of weeks, if you watch closely it\u2019s a fantastic group to be part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of quality, a lot of younger players, players who are getting new roles and they are enjoying that as well.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBut at the end of the day football is about results. Everybody wants to play their best football each and every game, but sometimes you have to find a way, like we did at Wolves (coming back from conceding first again to win 3-1).<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Thursday it was after we conceded a set-piece, we showed that we stayed calm and found a way as well.\u201d<\/p>\n