Jurgen Klopp has suggested that Darwin Nunez may have played his way into Liverpool’s starting line-up.
Nunez was the match-winner yesterday, coming off the bench to fire a sensational brace in the final 10 minutes against Newcastle United.
Having featured for just 28 minutes across the opening two Premier League games, the 24-year-old put down a marker at St James’ Park. Inevitably Klopp was asked in his post-match press conference whether Nunez had done enough to start Sunday’s visit of Aston Villa.
“I never made a decision about the line-up the week before the game, we will see,” said the Liverpool manager.
“But you can have worse arguments, I would say.”
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Nunez makes his case
Of course Jurgen isn’t going to come out and directly give away his line-up for Sunday. There’s no reason not to keep Villa guessing.
The beauty of the Liverpool squad is that they now have three very different players who can play through the middle for them.
Teams will have a very different plan for Cody Gakpo than Nunez, and another one for Diogo Jota.
Over recent times, Liverpool have been a little predictable in this sense. For years you knew the front three would be Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah.
But now, there’s the possibility for variation depending on the opponent. Let’s keep them guessing.
That aside though, it seems pretty clear that Nunez is well in the running to make his first start of the campaign at Anfield. He lived up to his ‘exceptional’ billing yesterday and looks a constant threat.
Jota also had a good cameo, it must be said. But he didn’t ping it past Nick Pope twice. So, reading between the lines of Klopp’s ‘worse arguments’ comments, surely Darwin is getting the nod.