Jurgen Klopp has admitted he cannot guarantee Darwin Nunez will not lose his head again but believes the striker can cope with the provocation at Goodison Park if he makes his comeback in his first Merseyside derby.
The summer signing is available again after serving a three-match ban for headbutting Crystal Palace defender Joachim Andersen on his Anfield debut.
Klopp thinks even Luis Suarez, whose Liverpool career contained other misdemeanours but no red cards, has communicated with Nunez about the need to keep his cool, but attributed his sending off to emotions.
He said: “He is a wonderful young man, honestly, but he has emotions as well. So making a mistake, we didn’t speak for the full 15 days to him about it, telling him: ‘You have to calm down’. Of course we told him, not only now but now especially.
“I think Luis Suarez told him, I’m not sure they spoke privately but probably they did via news and using some media. That will happen but it happens to others as well, that’s how it is, you just have to ignore it and use it. Our ideas and how we want to think in these situations is that we pay back with football, and that is how it is.”
Klopp does not believe the Everton centre-backs, James Tarkowski and the vocal Conor Coady, will try and wind Nunez up and feels the Uruguayan’s limited English may help protect him.
He added: “I don’t think Tarkowski and Coady are famous for too much this kind of talking during the game. Most of the things he doesn’t understand anyway, but you don’t have to be too creative with it. I don’t think the two boys are like this, but who knows? We will see.
“If Darwin plays then he has to be ready for these things, definitely, that is clear, but when a player is talking to you a lot or is really physical, then he is not in his own game, and he [Nunez] has to use these kind of moments as well. If the other one is too busy wanting to distract him, you just have to use it from a football point of view.
“For the Crystal Palace game, when the defender is searching for this constant contact, then go from there and you decide when you start the movement, these kind of things. It was a lot that came together for the boy, it is all new, it was his first home game, it was so a lot of excitement, the emotional level you go into a game is already [high up] here, you don’t need a lot to be a bit too emotional.
“The two weeks helped for sure, you can see it. Will it never happen again? I don’t know, but I am pretty sure nothing will happen in the next game.”
