Liverpool: Arne Slot reveals Darwin Nunez's dressing-room reaction to glaring Aston Villa miss | OneFootball

Reds striker spurned a glorious opportunity to put his side in front at 2-2 in Villa Park thriller

Darwin Nunez was “quite down” in the dressing room following his miss for Liverpool against Aston Villa, according to manager Arne Slot.

Wednesday night’s thrilling Premier League contest at Villa Park was locked at 2-2 with just over 20 minutes to play when Conor Bradley played a fine low through pass from inside his own half to release Dominik Szoboszlai, who went into the box and drew goalkeeper Emi Martinez before squaring for Nunez, who blazed wide of an open goal from about seven yards out at the back post under pressure from a sliding Axel Disasi.

Such a glaring miss drew an exasperated and critical response from fans and pundits alike as a difficult season continued for the Uruguayan striker, who has scored only six goals in 35 appearances across all competitions so far and made just 11 starts.

Before his late match-winning brace against Brentford last month, Nunez had scored just once in the league since September, while Diogo Jota has been preferred as Liverpool’s starter through the middle in the last two matches with Cody Gakpo sidelined through injury, with midfielder Curtis Jones brought into the attack instead at Villa with Luis Diaz rested.

Those struggles have seen the 25-year-old - who cost Liverpool an initial £64million after arriving from Portuguese giants Benfica in the summer of 2022 - linked with a move away from Anfield, with rumoured interest from Saudi Arabia.

Reflecting on his team’s performance against Villa, Slot believed they played well and had the chances to win, admitting that one unnamed player was feeling “quite down” in the dressing room afterwards in an apparent reference to Nunez.

"We've played a few games now, with Plymouth, with Wolves, with Everton, where the game was not open at all, and that sometimes doesn't benefit us,” the Liverpool boss told TNT Sports.

"So you have to play the game as it unfolds, and today we played a team that wanted to play the ball out from the back.

"So we had some very good moments, scored the first goal from a good pressing moment, but we took it the way the game went, and they came back in the final minute.

"But if you look at the chances we had in the second half to go in front, you can understand there's one person in the dressing room that feels quite down, and you know who it is I think."

Addressing Nunez’s horror miss again in his post-match press conference at Villa Park, Slot insisted that Szoboszlai had been right not to take on the shot himself and offered some mitigation for Nunez as he took the chance on his weaker foot, lamenting that he was then thwarted afterwards by Martinez as he again revealed his striker’s disappointment.

“What I saw was an unbelievable pass from Conor Bradley and what a power run from Dominik Szoboszlai, who made, in my opinion, the perfect choice to square it [as] from a one-v-one to the goalkeeper he made it an open-goal chance,” Slot said.

“Then Darwin, of course, it was not the best leg [because] he is right-footed, of course, but it was still a big chance.

“Yeah, very unlucky and I was hoping that he could have got another one because a player like him probably wouldn’t miss two chances in a row and he was very close afterwards when he went towards Martinez again, but Martinez made a great sliding tackle to win the ball.

“I think we are all disappointed but it is normal that a player that missed a chance like this is always a bit more disappointed than the rest.”