Darwin Nunez missed a glaring opportunity to win the game for Liverpool at Villa Park on Wednesday
Darwin Nunez has vowed not to throw in the towel at Liverpool after posting an emotional response following his glaring miss in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw with Aston Villa. Having arrived as a second-half substitute, Nunez put Dominik Szoboszlai’s inviting pass across the face of goal over the bar from about six yards out with the score level after the hour mark.
It was a poor finish from the Uruguay international with head coach Arne Slot revealing in his Thursday morning press conference that he was unhappy with the work rate shown from his No.9 after the opportunity passed him by at Villa Park.
Nunez, inevitably, became a topic for debate online after the draw that took the Premier League leaders eight points clear of Arsenal, but the former Benfica star has taken to X to post a reply on Thursday morning.
Alongside an image of him celebrating one of his two match-winning goals against Brentford last month, Nunez wrote: “I was not the best three weeks ago nor am I the worst now. If I fall, I get up. You will never see me throw in the towel.
“I will give it my all until the last day I am here in Liverpool. Resilience!”
Nunez actually initially posted a more colourful tweet that was then deleted: “Two or three weeks ago, Darwin was the best, Darwin gave us three points, but yesterday I had the bad luck of missing a goal and now I am once again the “worst” and the loser.
“I don’t fall, I get up and will never give up. I will give it my all until the last day I am here in Liverpool. Resilience!”
Speaking about how Nunez reacted to the big miss on the night, Reds boss Slot said on Thursday morning: “It is not the chance but the 20 minutes afterwards that I will talk to Darwin about.
“Yes, I will tell him that [he still has a major part to play] as well. I will tell him that you can miss a chance but you cannot miss out on work rate.
“That is the life of a striker, he will miss chances and score some. It is part of the job of a No.9, you miss when people expect you to score. It is not part of the job of a No.9 to slow down in work rate. And that is something we will talk about.
“I can accept every miss, especially from a player who scored two very important goals away at Brentford and that scored for us in the home game against Villa. I would prefer him to score but the word ‘chance’ says it all. It is a chance and not 100% [certain] that it goes in.
“I can accept misses but what is harder for me to accept is his behaviour after the chance. It got too much in his head, he was not the usual Darwin who works his backside off and makes sure he helps the team. He was too disappointed he missed that.
“I always truly believe it is always best to have Wata’s (Wataru Endo) mindset. For the whole season he does not complain, keeps on going and keeps on going, whenever we need him he is ready. That is very difficult and there are not many players that can do this.”
Nunez has scored six goals in all competitions for the Reds, with four coming in the Premier League.