# Virgil van Dijk Believes Darwin Nunez is Starting to Realise His Potential at Liverpool
Liverpool’s record signing Darwin Nunez has had a testing start to life at Anfield, but Reds captain Virgil van Dijk believes the Uruguayan is starting to realise the potential which persuaded the club to spend a possible club-record transfer fee on him.
Nunez has already played a significant part this season, scoring two late goals as a substitute to beat Newcastle, and taking responsibility for equalising through a penalty in their eventual 3-1 Europa League victory over LASK in Austria. He has three goals and two assists this season, but his all-round influence has been felt more than just from that contribution.
Van Dijk believes the 24-year-old is developing into the striker they hoped they were getting when they paid Benfica an initial £64 million, which could rise to £85 million, last summer.
## Nunez Showing His Quality
“Everyone has a role to play whether you start or not,” says van Dijk. “Everyone has now seen the potential and the quality he has. Against LASK Darwin was important with the goal. Long may it continue, and with the other boys as well.”
One of those “other boys” – quite literally – was Ben Doak who became Liverpool’s fourth-youngest European player with his first start at the age of 17 years and 314 days. The young Scot was given a run in Salah’s right-wing position and showed flashes of his talent despite being starved of opportunities in a poor first-half performance by the team.
“It was a big night for him,” added Van Dijk. “It 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. I am pleased for him and I’m also very excited for him and the future that’s coming.”
## Liverpool’s Young Talent
You’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, if you watch closely it’s a fantastic group to be part of. We have a lot of quality, a lot of younger players, players who are getting new roles and they are enjoying that as well. But 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). On Thursday it was after we conceded a set-piece, we showed that we stayed calm and found a way as well.
Nunez is showing his quality and potential at Liverpool, and with the help of van Dijk and other experienced players in the squad, he is sure to continue to develop into an even better player. With such a talented young squad, Liverpool are sure to have a bright future ahead of them.