Several Sky Sports pundits were critical of Darwin Nunez over his ‘petulant’ kick out at Kyle Walker-Peters in Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Southampton on Saturday, with one former Reds player calling it ‘cowardly’ and ‘disrespectful’.
The Saints took a shock lead at Anfield in first-half stoppage time as Will Smallbone capitalised on a defensive mix-up between Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk (amid subsequent claims over a possible offside), and frustration boiled over for one of their teammates in the wake of that goal.
The Uruguay striker recklessly kicked the away team’s right-back from behind and was promptly shown a yellow card, with Chris Sutton calling it ‘daft‘ from the 25-year-old and suggesting that he could easily have been sent off.
Sky pundits discuss ‘cowardly’ Nunez foul on Walker-Peters
The incident was discussed on Sky Sports‘ Ref Watch segment on Monday, and although Dermot Gallagher and Sue Smith agreed that a booking for Nunez was the right decision by Lewis Smith, they described his foul on Walker-Peters as ‘petulant’ and ‘silly’ respectively.
Stephen Warnock went a bit further in his condemnation of Liverpool’s number 9, saying: “It’s just a cowardly tackle, isn’t it? I hate that type of tackle because it’s just disrespectful to a fellow professional.”
Not what we want to see from Nunez
Although Nunez made a vital contribution in the second half by scoring the equaliser and winning the penalty from which Mo Salah fired the Reds in front a couple of minutes later, he won’t be proud of what he did to Walker-Peters just before half-time.
There was obvious frustration over how LFC had fallen behind to the Premier League’s bottom club after conceding such a sloppy goal, but that doesn’t excuse the Uruguayan from lashing out at the Southampton defender.
There wasn’t really enough force in it for a red card to have been given, and Smith got it right by deeming it worthy of a yellow, but a different referee on a different day may well have interpreted it differently.
We imagine that Arne Slot will have had a word with Nunez behind the scenes and warned him not to repeat such an act of petulance, especially at a time when Liverpool were a goal down and could also have found themselves a player down.
Let’s hope that our number 9 learns from it and we don’t see him losing the head in such circumstances again.
I am amazed Stephen Warnock hasn’t realized piling on the Nunez negatives doesn’t help our club nor Nunez, I get it you want to say things that sound intelligent, but most intelligent thoughts use the brain.