Gary Lineker has tipped Darwin Nunez to be a roaring success at Liverpool after the Uruguayan scored on his Premier League debut.
Nunez was brought on five minutes into the second-half as the Reds stumbled to an opening day draw with Fulham. Jurgen Klopp's side were sloppy for large parts of the clash at Craven Cottage, with the hosts twice going ahead before being pegged back.
Aleksandar Mitrovic had put the Cottagers up just after the half-hour mark, with Klopp bringing on Nunez after the break as Liverpool searched for an equaliser. The club-record signing duly delivered 14 minutes after being introduced to the action.
Mohamed Salah was set free down the right, with the Egyptian crossing in for Nunez. The 23-year-old then delivered a moment of brilliance, bursting ahead of his marker before flicking the ball past Bernd Leno with his trailing leg.
It was a fantastic goal, which brought Liverpool on level terms, before Mitrovic scored a penalty to put Fulham back in front. But the Reds were able to score a second equaliser, with Nunez knocking the ball to Mohamed Salah who tucked the ball home.
Nunez's performance off the bench certainly caught the eye and left Lineker predicting he would be fighting for the golden boot. The former England striker tweeted: "Darwin Nunez equalises for Liverpool. Very clear, from that goal alone, that he’ll score bundles. The movement of a goal-scorer."
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Klopp was also delighted with the display of the latest addition to his attacking options. And he insisted that had Liverpool performed better, Nunez would have added more than one goal to the scoresheet.
"All fine, that’s how it should be. In a situation like that when we don’t really find a way in front of the goal, you need this extra determination, and the difference as well, it makes it difficult for the opponent obviously," he said.
"Yes, a great goal, could have scored another one as well, maybe two – crazy. So, he is involved in a lot of goal-scoring situations – that's really cool and that's where we have to bring him up.
"Now imagine we would play good, how often we could set him up then? Because that was obviously our main problem, that our delivery was most of the time not good enough, and that was alright – we had massive chances, it's crazy.
"If I would watch it back, if you watch highlights, you could misunderstand this game completely because we had a few really good situations, but between these situations we just didn't play well."
While he was left unhappy with his side, Klopp was pleased they were able to come away with a point. The German insisted his men could have won, though they will have to wait for their first three points of the campaign until at least a week on Monday when they host Crystal Palace.
"The best news about this game is the result, so I am really fine with the point. I know we could've won the game, that wouldn't have made our performance a little bit better, but we could have, but it would have been too much today," Klopp said.
"I am happy for the punishment we got with losing two points, if you want. I know you can see that differently – Fulham might say as well they lost two points – but that’s how football is. We all can see it our way. But again, the most positive thing is the result."
