Arne Slot jumps to defense of Darwin Nunez after early Liverpool substitution

Liverpool manager Arne Slot defended Darwin Nunez over his start to the season, insisting that it's unfair to criticize him due to his lack of starts for the Reds.

Nunez was named in a starting line-up for just the third time against Bologna in the Champions League and drew a blank before being withdrawn after around an hour.

The Uruguayan has figured seven times for Liverpool this season but has completed 90 minutes just once, in last week's EFL Cup win over West Ham, and has scored just once, in a Premier League win over Bournemouth.

Slot was keen to point out that Nunez might have scored more goals at the start of the season had he played more minutes. “I don’t only focus on the individual,” said Slot. “I think in the first hour, we didn’t create a lot of chances for him as well because we missed out on the last pass on numerous occasions. If we had done better, that would probably have led to chances for him as well.

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“His home game against Bournemouth, great goal. Today he was also involved against a team we faced that was really hard and tough on him. And his team-mates didn’t always find him when they could have.

“I don’t think it is really on us to say, ‘he only scored one for Liverpool’, because you also have to look at the playing time he got. It’s a bit early to say after three starts he only scored one. For me that is a bit too early.”

Meanwhile, Slot admitted in his post-match interview with TNT Sports that his adaptation period at the club has been made easier by the fact that he and predecessor Jurgen Klopp both have similar management styles.

"Not only the players, but also the staff I inherited [have been receptive to my ideas]," Slot said. "They've been positive from the start, players as well, and it probably has a lot to do with us not changing many things, keeping a lot of things the same, because they were very happy with the former regime. So then you don't have to change a lot and the good thing was that they bought into it. They worked really hard to keep a clean sheet today, although we also needed our goalkeeper on a few occasions!"