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The Liverpool striker pulled his shirt over his head and was given a handful of consolatory pats on the head as he disappeared down the tunnel.

The Liverpool squad who now hold an eight-point advantage over Arsenal will try and ensure it's nothing but a mere footnote but when the margins are so slender in tough assignments as this at Aston Villa, such gilt-edged misses become unacceptable.

Nunez had only been on the pitch a couple of minutes when he raced onto Dominik Szoboszlai's pass across the face of goal and perhaps that is the wafer thin mitigation for the substitute to cling to.



Instead, the close-range shot sailed over the bar and for the second Wednesday running, Liverpool were forced to deal on a 2-2 draw away from home.

“There’s one player in the dressing room who feels quite down and I think you know who that is,” Slot admitted after the game.

His die-for-the-shirt, heart-on-sleeve style has earned him many admirers during his time on Merseyside, but Liverpool are unable to carry passengers for this run-in and as he nears the home stretch of his third season at Anfield, the same flaws remain as blinding as they did on day one.

The fact Nunez has been unable to become the first-choice No.9 during a period that saw Diogo Jota go four months between Premier League starts until last week at Wolves says it all.

The Reds rebuffed tentative advances from Saudi Pro League clubs in January with the belief that it was all hands on deck for the rest of the campaign?

Lucas Digne's cross in stoppage time was met by Ollie Watkins's head to give the hosts the lead heading into the break and Slot will have been furious not to have seen out the half having initially led after 30 minutes, particularly given Villa scored from two of their three shots on target

Slot started with only two recognised frontmen in Jota and Salah in favour of four midfielders as Curtis Jones was brought back for Luis Diaz but the tweak struggled to work at times as the Tielemans and John McGinn in particular stamped their mark over proceedings in the first 45.

Villa’s power and combative nature saw them emerge successfully from more duels than Slot would have liked and the impressive Morgan Rogers began to exert his influence the longer the game went.

But Liverpool remain title favourites for a reason and it was a powerful surge of their own that led to the leveller as Trent Alexander-Arnold burst forward, exchanged a pass with Salah and beat Martinez via a deflection for 2-2.

It was supposed to be the catalyst for the statement victory; the win that turned the screw and opened up the points gap to double digits
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