Diogo Jota ready to take his chance after scoring 10,000th goal in Liverpool history

Diogo Jota scored his third goal in eight games as Liverpool brushed Midtjylland aside for a 2-0 victory on Tuesday, with that being the 10,000th goal in the club’s history.

It has been a strong start for Jota at Anfield, with the Portuguese following up his £45 million switch from Wolves with three strikes in just 415 minutes of action so far.

An immediate impact helped both Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah settle into key roles under Jurgen Klopp, and though they pose direct competition, Liverpool’s new No. 20 will be hoping for similar fortune.

Becoming the player who scored the 10,000th goal since the club was founded in 1892 may be largely insignificant – the scorer of the 9,000th was Sotirios Kyrgiakos – but Jota was proud of the achievement nonetheless.

More important as he conducted post-match media duties, however, was being able to secure the three points for the second game running.

“After a good away win [at Ajax], it’s important to keep adding points and we did our job, we got three points. Now we’ll be ready for the next game,” he told BT Sport.

“Obviously I’m happy to score and help the team to achieve the win, and of course, achieving that [10,000] mark is always a good thing. But I’m more happy with the victory today.”

On the importance of the likes of him, Xherdan Shaqiri, Takumi Minamino and Divock Origi catching the eye when drafted in, Jota stressed that “everyone needs to be ready.”

“Everyone in the squad knows that he might be important for some part of the season, busy schedule, so many games,” he continued.

“Unfortunately, we have injuries as well – these things happen – so everyone needs to be ready.

“And when we have the chance we need to show that we are able to do our job.”

Jota has certainly been up to the task, and was undoubtedly the standout of Liverpool’s fringe attackers once again on Tuesday, after Klopp rested all three of Salah, Mane and Roberto Firmino.

Having already showed he can perform alongside the established front three as well as in place of them, it could be that Jota’s game time only increases further now.