Virgil van Dijk praises Darwin Nunez amid pre-season struggles for Liverpool

Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk has praised new signing Darwin Nunez and believes the Uruguayan can have a big career at Anfield despite some early struggles in pre-season.

The former Benfica frontman moved to Merseyside in a deal that could reach £85million and has effectively been given the task of replacing Sadio Mane, who joined Bayern Munich earlier this summer.

But Nunez has not exactly hit the ground running, with a clip of the 23-year-old blazing over the bar from close range against Manchester United in a pre-season friendly going viral.

Rival fans have jumped on the striker’s stuttering start to life at Liverpool, with a compilation of another underwhelming performance against Crystal Palace also mocked by supporters of other clubs.

But Van Dijk is confident Liverpool have brought in an excellent player and clearly will not be judging his new team-mate off the back of two pre-season cameos.

Asked for his thoughts on Nunez, the Dutch centre-back told The Athletic: ‘We saw how good Darwin is when we played against Benfica last season (in the Champions League quarter-finals).

‘He’s a very talented striker — one for now and also one for the future.

‘I just remember in the away leg, he tried to target Ibou (central defensive partner Ibrahima Konate) a bit more than me!

‘He did well. He caused a lot of problems for us as a team. Very direct, quick and strong.

‘I was sad that Sadio left us, but we knew it was coming. He felt that it was time to move on and get a new challenge. We all respected that.

‘The club reacted by getting Darwin in. Hopefully, he’s going to have a fantastic career for Liverpool.’

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, similarly, is paying no attention to the pelters Nunez is getting from rival fans and