'I was not the best' - Darwin Nunez vows to come back stronger after horror miss against Aston Villa as Arne Slot slams Liverpool striker's behaviour in emotional rant

Mohamed Salah put Liverpool ahead at the half-hour mark, giving the visitors early control of the game. However, Aston Villa mounted a fierce comeback with Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins both finding the net, leaving Liverpool trailing at the break. The Reds managed to level the score in the second half, thanks to a deflected effort from Trent Alexander-Arnold. Yet, despite pushing for a winner, they failed to capitalise on key opportunities, with Nunez squandering an open-goal chance from close range.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot addressed the situation in his latest press conference, emphasising that he was not disappointed by the miss but by how it seemed to affect Nunez’s overall performance.

"I will tell him that you can miss a chance but you cannot miss out on workrate," Slot told reporters. "That is the life of a striker, he will miss chances and score some. It is part of the job of a No 9, you miss when people expect you to score. It is not part of the job of a No 9 to slow down in workrate. And that is something we will talk about. I can accept every miss, especially from a player who scored two very important goals away at Brentford and that scored for us in the home game against Villa. I would prefer him to score but the word 'chance' says it all.

"It is a chance and not 100 per cent that it goes in. I can accept misses but what is harder for me to accept is his behavior after the chance. It got too much in his head, he was not the usual Darwin who works his ass off and makes sure he helps the team. He was too disappointed that he missed that chance. Maybe we will never know but maybe that was why he was just a fraction short the moment afterwards (when Emiliano Martinez won the ball in a 50-50 challenge). It is not the chance but the 20 minutes afterwards that I will talk to Darwin about."

Shortly after Slot’s comments, Nunez took to social media to express his determination to overcome the setback.

He wrote: "I wasn't the best three weeks ago, and I'm not the worst now. If I fall, I get up. You'll never see me give up. I'm going to give it my all until the last day I'm here in Liverpool. Resilience! 💪🏼"

Liverpool currently hold an eight-point advantage over Arsenal at the top of the table, though the gap could be reduced to five if the Gunners secure a victory over West Ham on Saturday. A response will be expected from Nunez when the Reds will face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.