After Darwin Nunez, a new Liverpool attacker, was sent for a careless headbutt during Monday’s 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace, Virgil van Dijk remarked that Nunez must “manage himself.”
The 23-year-old Uruguayan, who joined the team in June after leaving Benfica, was given a straight red card at Anfield in the 57th minute for a challenge on Joachim Andersen and will miss the next three games.
After Liverpool was reduced to 10 men, Luis Diaz of Colombia scored an outstanding equaliser to cancel out Wilfried Zaha’s first-half goal.
However, the result meant that Jurgen Klopp’s club, who has just two points after their opening two Premier League games, lost more ground.
Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino were not present for the match against Palace, and Nunez will now miss matches against Manchester United, Bournemouth, and Newcastle, leaving Klopp with a lack of attacking options.
“He’s got the backing from us and he knows it should not happen again and hopefully it will be that way,” said the defender.
“He has to control himself, definitely. I think that’s a separate thing. He has to manage himself, he has to be knowing that these things can happen, especially in the Premier League.
“It will be a learning curve for him and hopefully it will never happen again.”
“We’ve played two games so far this season and there’s still a long way to go so anything can happen,” he said.
“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.”
