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Having looked leggy against PSG in midweek, the Reds took that same lack of energy into the game at Anfield on Saturday.

And Liverpool were deservedly punished just before half-time, Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk making a mess of a routine clearance to allow Will Smallbone in to score.

Following the goal, Liverpool were lucky not to be reduced to 10 men.



Darwin Nunez could perhaps have been punished following a very late challenge on a Southampton player.

But having come out for the second-half and immediately scored and made another goal, Arne Slot clearly did something right with the big Uruguayan.

Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images

Nunez was not the only Liverpool player to be well below his best on Saturday.

However, with the Reds 1-0 down, his head loss on the halfway could have been incredibly costly.

Some managers would have counted their blessings that he had stayed on the pitch and taken him off at the nearest opportunity.

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But Slot is not most managers, and having sent Nunez back out with a point to prove, the 25-year-old scored just seven minutes into the second-half.

Three minutes later he had won the penalty which Mohamed Salah converted to give Liverpool the lead.

And according to former Reds player Don Hutchison, some positive words from the boss must have done the trick.

READ MORE: What Liverpool fans did to show love for Alisson straight from kick-off against Southampton

“I think Darwin Nunez is a lucky man to stay on the pitch,” Hutchison said via premierleague.com.

“Obviously Arne Slot has delivered a positive team-talk to him to try and redeem himself.”

Had you taken a poll inside Anfield at half-time, probably the comfortable majority would have been in favour of taking Nunez off.

However, Slot kept him on and was repaid with a neat finish at the front post not long later.

And having admitted that Nunez had been lucky to stay on the pitch, Hutchison then praised the finished from Liverpool’s No.9

“That’s why you don’t take your number nine off,” he said.