Jamie Carragher slammed Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez for his red card against Crystal Palace on Monday, saying that he let himself and the team down with his actions on the night.
Palace and Liverpool played out an entertaining draw, but the major talking point of the night was Nunez’s sending-off. In the 57th minute, the former Benfica man headbutted Joachim Anderson and was given his marching orders by referee Paul Tierney.
The red card incident happened at a crucial juncture of the game as Liverpool was chasing the match after Wilfred Zaha had given the visitors the lead in the 32nd minute.
Liverpool was able to find an equalizer after Nunez was sent off, but Carragher felt that the Uruguayan international’s moment of madness cost the team all three points.
Speaking on Monday Night Football, as quoted by Liverpool Echo, the former England defender said that he couldn’t believe the fact that Nunez thought he could get away with the headbutt on Anderson. Carragher went on to say that had the striker remained on the pitch, Liverpool could have won the match.
“I couldn’t believe when he throws his arms up, he’s obviously remonstrating to the referee. They’re looking at the referee, Nunez straight at the referee ‘why aren’t you looking at this? Why isn’t it a foul?’ Andersen’s now looking at Nunez. There’s moments of madness.”
“I cannot believe how he thinks he’s going to get away with that when he’s remonstrating at the referee, there was no other option but you could not have had a better view. The whistles in his mouth and Andersen has just been touched it shows you the view the referee had.”
“As he’s walking back to that bench, he knows what he’s done, he’ll be sitting in the dressing room absolutely gutted – and rightly so. He’s let himself down and his team down, the points dropped. If he’s on the pitch I’m sure Liverpool would’ve went on to win,” said Carragher.
Gary Neville also weighed in on the incident and labelled the incident a moment of madness. While Neville admitted that Nunez will learn from his mistake, he commented that the dismissal of the Uruguayan will now give Jurgen Klopp an unwanted headache.
“It’s a moment of madness isn’t it. We saw in the first couple of games he’s combative. He throws his head back and you’re wondering why Andersen doesn’t push him back. He snaps back, he gets a little push, then that’s a proper butt, not one of those they put together.”
“That’s a proper butt to the underside of the nose, he’ll learn from that. As much as Liverpool playing well tonight, it’s a problem now because next week and then they’ll miss him for a couple of games,” said Neville.
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