Liverpool forward Diogo Jota insists that his goal against Watford was exactly as he had planned it.
The Portuguese opened the scoring at Anfield in Saturday lunchtime's 2-0 win with a clever header following a fine cross from Joe Gomez, who was starting at right-back in place of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who had only been named as a substitute after recovering from a hamstring injury.
Seconds after Alisson had made a smart save from Juraj Kucka at one end, Liverpool broke quickly and Gomez's superb cross was expertly headed home by Jota following a smart run across the six yard box.
Jota then pointed towards Gomez and could be seen shouting "I told you!" at his teammate as he ran towards him.
That is because for Jota the goal lived up to a pre-match prediction, with the forward telling Gomez that he would assist a goal for him before kick-off.
"To be honest, I told Joe before the game he was going to get an assist today," Jota told BT Sport before the match.
"Against Nottingham Forest [in the FA Cup two weeks ago], I had a few crosses from him that I did not know what to expect, but today I was confident and I told him, fortunately for us it went in."
On the win, which took the Reds at least temporarily top of the table ahead of Manchester City's trip to Burnley, Jota added: "We are at the beginning of a new cycle today and it was really important with players from our squad coming from all over the world for the early kick-off.
"it is not easy but we did our job and hopefully this will be the start of a good end to the season.
"This (top) is the position that we all want to be in for the last part of the season, we want to win every competition which means that we play a lot of games, and we will be ready for it."
Gomez was making only his second Premier League start of the season in the absence of Alexander-Arnold, and admitted that right-back isn't a position he is completely comfortable with.
"We know that Trent is a top player and what he brings to the side, it is not my natural position that I played today but I was happy to contribute today and like Diogo said, he trusted my delivery today," said Gomez.
"We know that every game is not going to be easy and they put up a tough fight. We knew they were going to be an organised side and well drilled and it was definitely a tough game right up until the end."
