Arne Slot admitted he was left eating his words after Darwin Nunez‘s wondergoal against Bournemouth, with the Liverpool head coach pleased with his work rate.
Nunez made his first start of the season in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Anfield, marking it with a spectacular goal curled in with his left foot.
It came in a strong performance from the No. 9, who looks to have taken Slot’s comments on board about contributing off the ball as much as he does in the box.
But in his post-match press conference, the head coach revealed his immediate reaction as Nunez lined up to shoot for his goal – one which many fans have experienced over the past two years.
“My first instinct when he shot was ‘why does he shoot?’,” Slot told reporters.
“I wanted to say ‘why don’t you keep on dribbling?’, because he made the ball free and I think the defender was on the ground.
“But then it was a fraction of a second later when I saw the ball went in off the post.
“I was like ‘OK, maybe you are a better football player than I was in the past’. Good choice from him!”
Slot bowed to Nunez’s better judgment in that instance, but it is imperative that the Uruguayan continues to follow his instructions in order to keep his place.
In the buildup to Saturday’s game, Slot explained how Diogo Jota was more of a natural “nine-and-a-half” while he saw Nunez as a “target man,” but the latter showed on Saturday that he is comfortable dropping deep and pressing high.
“That’s what I noticed as well,” he replied when asked about Nunez’s work rate in particular.
“Of course, I play a striker because I like him to score goals; I play a winger because I like him to assist or to score goals.
“Because if you want to win a game, you need to score goals.
“But it also helps if you keep a clean sheet. We just spoke about the leadup to both goals [for Luis Diaz], Ibou was involved in this, but keeping a clean sheet, Darwin is also involved in this.
“So first and foremost they have to work really hard for the team and then in the beginning of the season it was Mo who made the difference, with Lucho, then it was Cody, and Diogo has been involved in goals.
“Today it was Lucho and Darwin. That’s all we want to see.”
As Slot noted, the primary role of Liverpool’s central striker will be to score goals, and finding the back of the net in his first start should stand Nunez in good stead.
The ongoing objective will be to do so consistently, with the Dutchman hinting that he may be given a chance to build on this against West Ham on Wednesday night.
“I think you get consistency by two things, work rate and team performance,” Slot explained.
“If the team performance is not consistent it’s so difficult for an individual to be consistent as well.
“We just have to create our habits day by day on the training ground and in the games to get this consistency, because while working on your habits you create consistency.
“That’s what we try to do every day and he showed today a good game, maybe he can show it on Wednesday again, but let’s wait and see.”
Liverpool 3-0 Bournemouth
