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.
Addressing Nunez’s glaring 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.
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.
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.
“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.
