Darwin Nunez has vowed to give his all until his last day as a Liverpool player after Arne Slot criticised his reaction to a glaring miss in the 2-2 draw with Aston Villa.

The Reds squandered an opportunity to open up a ten-point lead over Arsenal at the top the Premier League table, failing to win for the third time in their last four outings.

Nunez had a huge chance to win the game for Liverpool but fired the ball over the crossbar with the goal gaping as Axel Disasi scampered across on the cover. But it wasn’t the miss itself that Slot took issue with, rather the Uruguayan’s reaction and demeanour after he’d made the error.

“It’s more about the 20 minutes afterwards where I want to talk to him, [rather] than about him missing a chance.” Slot said, suggesting his striker had taken a step back from the fundamentals. “I think the most important message is you can miss a chance but you can’t miss out on work rate. That is, for me, a more important message that I tell him because that’s the life of striker.

“He knows. He’s 25, he will probably have missed a few chances in his career and he probably would have scored a few as well. Of course we would love to see it differently but it’s part of the job of a No 9, part of your life that you sometimes miss where people expect you to score.

“But it’s not part of the job of a No 9 then to slow down in work rate and that is something we will talk about.”

Following his manager’s comments, Nunez, who has been linked with a big-money move to the Saudi Pro League, took to social media and stressed he would never give up for as long as he remains at Anfield.

“I wasn’t the best three weeks ago, and I’m not the worst now. If I fall, I get up. You’ll never see me give up,” the 25-year-old posted.

“I’m going to give it my all until the last day I’m here in Liverpool. Resilience!”

Slot went on to say that he will “accept every miss” from Nunez, who has scored a handful of important goals this season – including two off the bench in a vital win away at Brentford – but not a drop-off in application.

“It is a chance and not 100 per cent that it goes in,” the Dutchman continued. “What is harder for me to accept is his behaviour after the chance. It got too much in his head, he was not the usual Darwin who works his ass off and makes sure he helps the team. He was too disappointed that he missed.”

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