Jurgen Klopp gave Darwin Nunez a huge ‘bear hug’ after substituting him during Liverpool’s win over Rangers last night.
Nunez was subbed off with 10 minutes left of the comfortable 2-0 victory for the Reds. And as reported by The Daily Mail, Klopp was delighted with his striker’s shift.
The Liverpool manager reportedly ‘engulfed’ the 23-year-old in one of his trademark hugs as he made his way to the bench.
A definite sign that Klopp is starting to see what he’s been looking for in Darwin.
Nunez looking to build on promising evening at Anfield
Some may scoff at the praise for Nunez after another goalless display. It’s true that he would perhaps have expected to score in a match he had six shots at goal.
But it was just his third start for Liverpool after all. The Uruguayan’s movement and link-up play was much-improved, and both the Anfield crowd and his manager tend to notice such things.
On another day, a different goalkeeper might have let one or two of those half-dozen strikes slip past him. Not Allan McGregor though, the Rangers goalie was terrific all evening.
It was encouraging to see that Nunez wasn’t letting his failure to score get him down, though. At full-time he looked as pleased as anyone as he celebrated on the pitch with Thiago Alcantara.
Goal or no goal, he finally got the monkey off his back in terms of starting a game. It had been over a month and three matches since Liverpool’s No.27 had begun a game for the Reds.
He’ll now look to make that back-to-back starts for the first time in his Liverpool career.
But with respect to Rangers, Arsenal will be a different proposition. Jurgen Klopp admitted that Liverpool had only worked on their new formation for a single training session before yesterday’s game.
Whether Darwin starts at the Emirates on Sunday will likely depend on how he reacts to the further sessions throughout the week.
Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox
