Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders believes that Darwin Nunez ‘life changed’ after he scored a heroic match-winning brace in last month’s 2-1 win at Newcastle United.
The Uruguayan failed to hold down a place in the Reds’ starting lineup last season following his high-profile move from Benfica, though did manage to grab 15 goals in 42 games across all competitions.
Nunez also started this season on the bench but has worked his way back into the first XI in part thanks to scoring a superb double away at Newcastle prior to the international break.
Liverpool were a goal down and a man down at St. James’ Park after Anthony Gordon had broken the deadlock and Virgil van Dijk was sent off in the first half.
Jurgen Klopp’s side weathered the storm and Nunez popped up with excellent strikes in the 81st and 93rd minutes to seal an unlikely win for the visitors.
Ahead of Wednesday’s clash with Leicester City in the Carabao Cup, Lijnders sang the praises of Nunez.
“Compliments to Darwin, the fans love him,” he said. “He has this extreme mentality to run and fight and arrive in positions no-one thinks he can arrive. For us it is really important he stepped up offensively and defensively.
“It’s nice to see him in the good moments, it’s nice to see him positive, starting games in a row back-to-back and you see immediately what this does to a player. He is a pure intuition player. He smells goals and he sees and he does.
“Away at Newcastle, it would change any players’ life if you can change a game the way he changed the game. We played there for a long time with ten men and how he made two goals from nothing. It has given him confidence.
“An intuition player like Darwin, he needs this kind of confidence. He speaks better English already, he invests a lot in himself. And it’s like every person everywhere, you need success, no? A player with confidence or without is just a different player. So it is important he is confident and he is training really really hard.”
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