Liverpool's patience with Alexander Isak is starting to be rewarded, with the record-breaking £125m purchase finally resembling the most expensive striker in Premier League history.
Isak's neatly-taken goal in Liverpool's 2-0 win over an in-form Brighton at Anfield on Sunday means the Swede has now registered in three straight Premier League games for first time since January 2025, when he went on an eight-match scoring streak for Newcastle.
What was equally encouraging for head coach Andoni Iraola was the way Isak and fellow £100m-plus recruit Bradley Barcola, operating on the right-hand side of the front three on this occasion, linked up for his goal as the France forward broke clear before locating Isak where he is most effective - in the six-yard box, between the width of the posts.
This was always the vision of Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards, the men who brought Isak to the club last summer for that British-record fee, as well as Florian Wirtz for a similarly hefty outlay, as they looked to build on the previous season's title win by investing heavily in just one or two marquee signings, rather than follow Arsenal's approach and spread the finances out so as to build a bigger, more durable squad.
After Edwards's departure in July, it was Hughes who then got the Barcola deal over the line before his own Anfield exit, as Liverpool looked to double down on their policy of signing smaller, technical players at a time when the Premier League was becoming increasingly physical.
But perhaps the duo's vision for a post-Mohamed Salah front line is now starting to be realised - never more so than with Isak.
The signs looked promising for the player after an encouraging showing for Sweden at last summer's World Cup, followed by more impressive displays in pre-season for the Reds, form which he carried over into this campaign.
Isak poached his first goal of the new season in the 2-2 home draw with Nottingham Forest in August, one of six in his seven league outings so far, leaving him just one behind Erling Haaland at the top of the Premier League scoring chart.
And his overall importance to the team can be seen by the fact the 27-year-old has scored in every one of their league wins to date, while only Victor Munoz among his team-mates has more than one top-flight goal this season.
Iraola, though, is not so worried about how many goals his big-money striker gets, more how he can help the team win with his pressing from the front.
"He's a massive player for us," Iraola told Sky Sports in September. "Probably my demands will not be about the goals, I know that [if] he's fit, he's in good shape, he's going to produce the numbers.
"My fights with him are more about other stuff, about how to help the team in all the situations."
And it was no coincidence that despite his recent fine run in front of goal, the Liverpool head coach was still banging that same drum ahead of Arsenal's visit to Anfield on Super Sunday.
"I think Alex feels the trust of everyone," Iraola reiterated in midweek. "Everyone trusts if he moves into good positions he will score goals.
"But I always tell him he has to help us so we can give you the chances, and I think he understands that necessity. I hope that can continue at the same level."
However, it is not just the eye test Isak is passing, with the Sweden international understandably now moving much freer after last season's injury woes and finally beginning to look like the player Liverpool thought they were buying, but statistically his on-pitch numbers also point to a vast improvement in his attacking output.
For one thing, Isak is taking a shot more per league game this season, 3.15 compared to 2.18, which probably explains why his xG per 90 has also doubled from 0.33 to 0.67 this campaign, while his strike rate of 0.95 goals per 90 minutes is second only to Haaland.
Among fellow top-flight strikers, only Haaland [24.1] has had fewer touches per game this season than Isak's 24.6, although like the Norwegian goal poacher, when a chance falls his way, he tends to bury it.
And those metrics are all tracking with his best scoring campaign in England, when Isak managed 27 goals in just 42 games in all competitions in his last season at St James' Park.
"He is massively important because Liverpool are not a great goalscoring team right now," was Jamie Carragher's assessment of just how reliant his former club now are on Isak from an attacking point of view.
"Besides him, who else is going to score the goals? Victor Munoz has got a couple, but Isak has made a great start, in complete contrast to last season, when he was injured.
"We've still not probably seen the full version of Isak that we saw at Newcastle, but I think that will come with more games, repetition of training sessions with Iraola and maybe we'll see the best of him in the second half of the season.
"But he's getting goals and he needs to get goals because there's aren't too many players around him getting goals for Liverpool."
It goes without saying, then, that Iraola and his medical team must now manage Isak's minutes given his own indifferent injury record and with fellow striker Hugo Ekitike still recovering from a long-term Achilles injury and not set to return until next year.
As such, the Reds boss often looks to replace Isak up front with Lewis Koumas towards the end of games, even more so after he was forced to miss the 3-0 home loss to Man City with a thigh problem suffered on international duty with Sweden.
Injuries have been a running theme for the Swede from the first day he joined the club, as they also were at times in his three seasons at Newcastle, and he arrived at Anfield having gone on strike and missed an entire pre-season in a bid to to push through the move.
That meant Isak was playing catch-up right from the start, and he missed four games with abductor pain in October and November before being sidelined for 106 days after his left leg was fractured in a challenge at Tottenham before Christmas.
When Isak did finally return in May, he was out for almost three weeks with more abductor issues and muscle strains to complete a miserable debut campaign on Merseyside that yielded just three league goals.
The combination of trying to get fit, while at the same time dealing with the huge weight of expectations that come with moving to the champions with a massive price tag at a time when the team was imploding, understandably proved a lot for a player who is naturally shy and retiring.
But with Isak's fitness now restored, and Liverpool gradually rediscovering their mojo again under their new head coach, in many ways this is like a new Anfield beginning for the Swede.
And with the champions in town this weekend, the club who were interested in signing him in January 2025, the striker has a chance to further show why he is now such an integral part of Iraola's Reds revival.
Watch Liverpool vs Arsenal on Sunday on Sky Sports Premier League from 3.30pm; kick-off 4.30pm