Virgil van Dijk admits Darwin Nunez "has to control himself" better as he backed the Liverpool striker to learn from his sending off against Crystal Palace.
Nunez saw red near the hour mark for lashing out at Palace defender Joachim Andersen after the pair had tussled all game with the visitors leading 1-0 at Anfield.
It marked the first red card for violent conduct of the Jurgen Klopp era at Anfield and the £64m striker will now miss the games with Manchester United, Bournemouth and Newcastle.
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'REALLY STUPID': Joachim Andersen reveals why Darwin Nunez was angry with him before red card
At a time when Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota are currently sidelined with injury, the absence of Nunez is far from ideal for Klopp, particularly as the Reds are so far winless this term after back to back draws with Fulham and Palace.
Van Dijk accepts it was a deserved dismissal for his team-mate, but says the Uruguay international will have learned a lot from the incident during the second half of the 1-1 draw.
"Obviously he was disappointed and also probably with himself," Van Dijk said. "But it's a learning curve and obviously we will always back him. He's got the backing from us and he knows it should not happen again and hopefully it will be that way.
"He has to control himself, definitely. I think that's a separate thing, he has to manage himself, he has to know that these things can happen, especially in the Premier League. Like I say, it will be a learning curve for him and hopefully it will never happen again.
"I think with 10 men we played outstanding, we put them under pressure, obviously we took a lot of risk because we had to score the equaliser and were hoping to get the winner. But I think it should not come with 10 men, it should not happen. Obviously we're disappointed to draw and not get the win, for sure."
The successive draws, which mark the worst start to a campaign under Klopp, mean the Reds now trail champions Manchester City by four points already. Van Dijk, though, isn't reading anything into the deficit this early into the new term.
He added: "We've played two games so far this season and there's still a long way to go so anything can happen. That's been shown over the last years so we'll focus on ourselves. We don't read what the others from the outside say about us because nobody knows what's really going on. We worked very hard to get three points, we worked very hard to try and get three points but today unfortunately it didn't happen. We keep going."
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