Jurgen Klopp believes Darwin Nunez eased the pressure on him by scoring his first Liverpool goals as he struck four times as a substitute in the 5-0 win over RB Leipzig.
The German savoured a “perfect night” for the £64 million signing, who had missed chances in his previous two appearances in friendlies against Manchester United and Crystal Palace.
Klopp felt Nunez had been affected by social-media criticism of his displays and he enjoyed the selfless streak of Mohamed Salah, who had opened the scoring, as the Egyptian allowed the Uruguayan to take a penalty for his first goal.
“Mo, I am not sure if his new contract has a clause being generous like hell and he gives Darwin the penalty and it opened Pandora’s box,” said the Liverpool manager. “It was the perfect night for him.”
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho set up subsequent goals for the former Benfica striker, who came on at half-time.
And Klopp feels his four-goal salvo will change the conversation around Nunez, adding: “We always think that if you pay a lot of money then the players feel no pressure or whatever. They are all completely normal human beings and the first touch is not perfect then all of a sudden… [they get criticised].
“This generation of players read social media, which is really not smart, but they do. All of a sudden you get in a rush and these kinds of things.
“That’s the best way obviously to stop all these discussions. He’s a different striker to what we have or what we had, but he’s a really good one.”
