Arne Slot believes Darwin Nunez allowed his glaring miss to affect him too much in the 2-2 with Aston Villa and said his side have “missed too many chances” this season.
The Reds failed to take the opportunity to extend their Premier League lead to 10 points in the draw at Villa Park but things could have been much different had the Uruguayan taken a golden opportunity shortly after coming on for Diogo Jota in the second half.
After being fed through by Domink Szobozlai with much of the goal to aim at, Nunez was unable to keep his shot down as Liverpool dropped more points in the title race.
Darwin Nunez misses a golden opportunity to put Liverpool ahead 😬
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/8f0rFedPHs
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 19, 2025
But rather than critise the 25-year-old for that chance, Slot was more concerned with the negative effect the forward allowed it ot have on the rest of his substitute apearance.
Ahead of Sunday’s crucial game against Manchester City, the Liverpool boss said: “I can accept every miss, especially from a player that has scored two very important goals against Brentford.
“In the game against Villa, I would prefer him to score, but the word ‘chance’ says it all – it’s a ‘chance. It’s not 100% sure that the ball goes in.
“But what was a bit harder for me to accept was his behaviour after that chance. And by ‘behaviour’ I mean I think it got too much in his head and he wasn’t the usual Darwin that works his *** off and makes sure he helps the team.
“I think he was too disappointed after missing that chance.”
Slot: Be more like Endo
Slot pointed to the attitude of midfielder Wataru Endo as somehting Nunez should try to emulate moving forward.
“I always truly believe it’s the best to have Wataru Endo’s mindset,” the Dutch manager added. “And what I mean by that is for the whole season he just keeps on going, keeps on going and whenever we need him, he is ready.
“And that is difficult because there are not many players that can do this. So it’s not about the chance for me, it’s more about the 20 minutes afterwards that I want to talk to him about than about him missing a chance.”
Slot: ‘We’ve missed too many chances’
Arsenal play a day earlier on Saturday against West Ham and ramp up the pressure by closing the gap to five points ahead of Liverpool’s trip to the Etihad.
Slot added: “Unfortunately, too many times this season we have missed chances. And what I mean by that is I don’t think we’ve stolen many points. I always come back to the Chelsea game when maybe a draw was maybe a more fair result.
“But for every other game I think we got what we deserved, or we deserved more – and that is more of a thing for me than Arsenal playing on Saturday and we on Sunday.”
Sunday’s opponents City were also in action Wednesday night as a 3-1 defeat at Real Madrid as they crashed out of the Champions League with a 6-3 aggregate loss.
It was the latest poor result in an underwhelming season for City which has them lying 17 points behind Liverpool in fourth in the Premier League, but Slot knows his side will still be in for a huge challenge at the Etihad.
The 46-year-old added: “What I always expect from City since Pep [Guardiola] is there is a great football team that can play so well. They’ve had maybe one or two months since the seven or eight years he’s there now that maybe weren’t the best – partly because of injuries as well.
“They have signed three or four players and I can see them coming back already if you look at the result against Newcastle. What you expect is what everyone expects if you go to the Etihad if you play against City.
“You have to suffer as well and work really hard to keep them away from your goal because they are so, so good in possession. But they face a strong team as well that have not lost in 22 games now.”
Trent gets us level 🎯 #AVLLIV pic.twitter.com/IDerXPnOmA
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 20, 2025
Team news: Gakpo assessed ahead of City, Bradley and Gomez out
Slot said “we will see” when asked about the fitness of Cody Gakpo after the Dutch forward missed last Sunday’s win over Wolves and the draw at Villa, adding it would be a “close call” whether he would be involved at the Etihad.
The Liverpool boss also said he does not expect right-back Conor Bradley to make the City game or the midweek clash with Newcastle.
Fellow Joe Gomez has just had surgery on a hamstring but Slot is not ruling out the possiblity of the Englishman returning before the end of the season.