Jurgen Klopp has praised the performance of one of his Liverpool players against Chelsea despite the 24-year-old not getting himself on the scoresheet.
Darwin Nunez missed a penalty and struck the woodwork four times as the Reds defeated Mauricio Pochettino’s side 4-1 at Anfield to remain five points clear at the top of the Premier League.
It may have been a frustrating night personally for our No. 9 as he failed to add to his 11 goals (across all competitions) but he did pick up an assist as he put it on a plate for Luis Diaz to seal all three points late on.
Our German tactician was full of praise for the Uruguayan after the game – explaining that it’s ‘crazy’ how many chances he creates.
“An insane first half, unbelievable, I would say not to defend. Outstanding, really good,” Klopp said (as quoted by GOAL). “Why do we speak about Darwin? Obviously because he has so many situations where he missed but it was the first game since we count that a player hit the woodwork four times in a game. Now think you are in his boots, how that feels. Missing a penalty, you could see it at half-time, he was really upset with himself.
“It is just crazy that he creates that many. Imagine for a second he would take them all… the numbers would be absolutely insane to the extent where you wouldn’t understand it anymore, so it’s normal. For us it is important because we scored four goals, who cares if we could have scored a fifth or a sixth? It is really not important.
“We need to win football games – and he will score. He scored already. Then setting up in a really important moment the fourth goal, because 3-2 or 4-1 is a big difference, that makes him really the player he is for us. The rest will come, definitely.”
Despite all of the missed chances for the ex-Benfica forward he still has 11 goals and 11 assists this term across all competitions which are impressive numbers at this stage of the season.
He’s an absolute nightmare for defenders with his movement and pace in behind and it’s hard to argue against claims that we’re a stronger side when he’s on the pitch.
We’ve got so many options in attack but Nunez is showing signs of progression and we look forward to seeing him continue to develop and find the back of the net in a red shirt.
No matter how many chances he misses he keeps his head up and works his socks off.
He’s a huge favourite amongst Kopites – let’s hope he can get on the scoresheet when we travel to the capital to face Arsenal on Sunday.