Former Chelsea winger Joe Cole was delighted by Darwin Nunez’s first-half display for Liverpool on Thursday evening.
Nunez was on the scoresheet against Toulouse, smashing home the Reds third goal of the evening 10 minutes before half-time.
And speaking about the Uruguayan at the interval for TNT Sports, Cole praised Liverpool’s No.9.
“I love Darwin Nunez!” the pundit enthused. “It’s a lovely bit of play in the build-up, it’s good pressing from Toulouse but Liverpool have got great creative players.
“It comes to Jones, he does a lovely little shimmy, tries to get a shot off, it comes to Nunez and he just lifts it. He knows the goalie’s going to go down.
“And he thoroughly deserved it. I thought he was excellent in the first-half.”
Nunez looked in the mood right from the start at Anfield.
In truth, the 24-year-old has looked raring to go in more or less every game he’s played this season. After a year of acclimatisation in 2022/23, Darwin is enjoying himself this time out.
But although he’s often looked likely to score, that hasn’t always resulted in the Uruguay international finding the net. Tonight, it did.
Nunez could actually have scored even before he did, bringing a decent save from the goalkeeper having shifted it nicely from right to left foot.
But Guillaume Restes could do nothing about the goal when it arrived. Pouncing on a loose ball in the box, Nunez smashed a left-footed strike over the ‘keeper into the roof of the net.
It really should have been two for the striker after the break. But having skipped through the Toulouse defence and rounded the goalkeeper, Nunez fired the ball back off the post.
It was a shocking miss, unfortunately the latest in a bit of a long line from the forward. But thankfully Ryan Gravenberch was on-hand to stick the rebound in the net. No harm done.
The miss aside, it was another example why Liverpool fans just love their No.9.
