Darwin Nunez’s miss against Aston Villa will long haunt many Liverpool fans and it seems clear now that some of his teammates had little faith in his scoring chances.
Stills from the moment that Dominik Szoboszlai was unleashed through on goal show Virgil van Dijk with his hands aloft, expecting to soon see the ball hit the back of the net.
The next image though is before our No.9 even touches the ball and our captain has soon changed a look of optimism to one of horror, ahead of the shot on goal.
This can either be seen as panic for the fact that the Hungarian chose not to shoot or that his teammate looked as though he was about to squander a huge chance.
You can tell from Robbie Fowler’s comments after the game on which party he placed his blame and it’s probably a theory that many supporters will agree with.
Darwin Nunez has been getting plenty of criticism after his Villa miss
When Arne Slot was seen almost pleading for an offside to be given after the miss too, you could feel how desperate he was to be able to help his player avoid criticism for the moment.
It has felt clear for a while now that Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz are the preferred options as our head coach’s central attacking option for the Reds.
Even with a slightly different tactical set-up at Villa Park, the former Benfica man couldn’t earn a place in the starting line-up and now it feels as though his chances will remain infrequent.
It’s over to the 25-year-old to once again try and silence the doubters in his next chance, though many will be running out of patience with him – if they haven’t already totally done so.
You can view the images of Van Dijk’s reaction to Nunez and Szoboszlai via @CF_Compss on X:
Van Dijk knew exactly what was about to happen, from celebrating to hands on his head pic.twitter.com/6Otgg8vW6w
— CF Comps (@CF_Compss) February 19, 2025
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