1 week ago
25 Gary Neville has made a claim about Darwin Nunez which he has suggested he would never normally make after Liverpool were beaten in the Merseyside derby on Wednesday night.
Liverpool fans would certainly be forgiven for believing that their Premier League title hopes are over after their performance against Everton, with the Toffees winning 2-0 at Goodison Park.
The Reds were completely outfought by the Toffees on a night where the importance of the game was abundantly clear to everyone, including Jurgen Klopp.
Klopp recalled the likes of Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez to the starting lineup after taking them out of the team which faced Fulham at the weekend.
Liverpool were so poor on the night, and yet they had the chances to secure a result which would have brought them back level with Arsenal at the top of the table.
Gary Neville says he would be fuming with Darwin Nunez after Liverpool loss
Neville was baffled by Salah fluffing his lines at one stage towards the end of the first-half. But surely the best chance of the game fell to Nunez when he only had Jordan Pickford to beat.
It appeared that the Uruguayan had most of the goal to aim for, and yet, he fired the ball straight at Pickford in a surprising lack of composure.
And speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, Neville suggested that it simply was not good enough from the 24-year-old.
“We watched Nicolas Jackson last night, young man who’s been criticised heavily in the last four days because of the chances he’s missed, but Darwin Nunez is missing as big, if not bigger chances, and with a bigger price-tag,” he said.
“And that one in the first-half, I don’t really ever go at players for missing chances, I’ve never felt, to be fair, because of the position I played in, worthy of being able to do so, but I think if you spoke to any striker, if that was a striker in my team that had missed, I’d be fuming. That is a really bad miss, it was as simple as putting the ball in the back of the net should be for a striker at this level.”
Reds will worry after striker passes up massive opportunity
Nunez has scored 11 goals in the Premier League this season. And it must be said that he does so many good things for the team which have helped put Liverpool into the title picture.
But only two players in the Premier League are performing worse against their non-penalty expected goals tally this season, according to FBRef, with Nunez now jumping ahead of Erling Haaland in the standings.
You get the feeling that Neville would not be anywhere near as scathing had Nunez not missed so many chances throughout the season, but that could be a massive moment in Liverpool’s season; a moment where the big players need to step up.
Unfortunately for the Reds, Nunez was unable to do that.
The post 'I'd be fuming': Gary Neville says something about Darwin Nunez after Liverpool loss he'd never normally mention appeared first on TBR Football.
