Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah’s post-match reactions were picked up by fans after Liverpool’s 2-2 draw against Aston Villa resulted in a loss of points in the race for the Premier League title. An additional point was dropped for Liverpool.
During the game on Wednesday night, Liverpool failed to capitalise on the opportunity to move ten points ahead of Arsenal.
The first goal of the game was scored by Mohamed Salah, who scored his 24th league goal of the season. However, after Villa scored twice in ten minutes, through Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins, things appeared to be going poorly for Arne Slot’s team.
To their credit, they continued to cause problems, and at the hour mark, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s strike that was deflected brought the score to a tie.
Just a few minutes later, however, one of the most significant events that occurred during and after the game became a topic of conversation. Immediately following the passing of the ball to Darwin Nunez by Dominik Szoboszlai, the Uruguayan player smashed his shot from close range over the crossbar.
Arne Slot, the manager of Liverpool, defended his number nine player during the post-match interview. Slot was speaking about the open aim opportunity.
“From a 1v1 with the custodian he made it an open goal chance. It was not Darwin’s best leg – he’s right-footed of course – but it was still a big chance,” the Dutchman explained to reporters.
“I was hoping he would get another chance because a player like him probably wouldn’t miss two chances in a row and he was very close but [Emiliano] Martinez made a great sliding tackle to win the ball.”
The following is an additional statement made by Slot: “If you look at the chances in the second half, there is one player in the dressing room who is feeling quite down. You know who it is.”
Fans also pointed out Salah’s devastated reaction after the final whistle blew at Villa Park, and a picture of Nunez speaking to goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez became another talking point on social media after the game was over.
As Nunez made his way to the tunnel, footage emerged showing Liverpool players receiving applause from the supporters of the opposing team.
This is how fans responded to the scenes on various social media platforms.
“A huge difference when it comes to sense of responsibility,” one person said, while another person commented, “How can you smile like this when you lost two important points?”
An additional contributor wrote: “100% don’t like this if honest, no one should be smiling knowing you’ve dropped points in a game with such importance. Shows that one is a serial winner! Shake hands but not good to be so happy straight after the game.”
A fourth individual commented: “He’s missing chances, but giving him stick won’t make it all better. Support Nunez.”
The manager of the team, Arne Slot, stated that his team “must not make a habit” of missing significant opportunities before their match against Manchester City on Sunday.
“If you go away at Villa it is always a difficult fixture. Performance-wise, not a dip at all today in my opinion,” he said.
What we must not do, and a bit too often now, we don’t get what we deserve. When you consider all of the opportunities that we and they had in a row, it is easy to see which team ought to have prevailed in this match.
Despite the fact that Arsenal has a game in hand, we are currently eight points ahead of them. However, we must not make that a habit because it has happened a bit too frequently at this point.
