FURIOUS Darwin Nunez defended his work ethic following Liverpool boss Arne Slot’s savage attack on his “unacceptable behaviour”.
Slot accused the £64million Uruguayan of being lazy after his horror open-goal miss cost the Reds victory in Wednesday’s 2-2 Prem draw at Aston Villa.
But Nunez, 25, blasted back with TWO social media posts.
He insisted: “You never see me give up”, before vowing “to give it my all until my last day at Liverpool”.
Manager Slot threw Nunez under the bus during yesterday’s 10:30am press conference as he revealed he would read him the riot act over his perceived poor work-rate.
It sparked an 1:18am reply on X from Nunez, which was then deleted and replaced with another post 13 minutes later.
Nunez’s “attitude” was also slammed by Kop fans after a video emerged of him heading alone down the Villa Park tunnel at the final whistle, while his team-mates applauded the travelling supporters.
Slot kicked off the war of words with the South American by insisting: “I will tell him you can miss a chance but you cannot miss out on workrate.
“That is the life of a striker — he will miss chances and score some.
“It is part of the job of a No 9. You miss when people expect you to score.
“But it is not part of the job of a No 9 to slow down in workrate. And that is something we will talk about.
“I can accept every miss, especially from a player who scored two very important goals at Brentford and scored for us in the home game against Villa.
“I would prefer him to score but the word ‘chance’ says it all. It is a chance so not 100 per cent that it goes in.
“I can accept misses but what is harder for me to accept is his behaviour after the chance.
“It got too much in his head. He was not the usual Darwin who works his a** off and makes sure he helps the team. He was too disappointed he missed that chance.”
Nunez, who also blew a one-on-one with Villa keeper Emi Martinez after coming on as a second-half sub, has just six goals this season and a total of only 39 in 131 Liverpool appearances since his move from Portugal.
But in his social media posts — written in Spanish — he hailed his own “resilience” plus his match-winning double at Brentford last month.
His first post, quickly deleted, read: “Three weeks ago Darwin was the best, Darwin gave us the three points.
“But yesterday, I was unlucky enough to miss a goal and I am once again the ‘worst’ and the failure.
“I don’t fall, I get up and I am never going to give up. I am going to give my all until the last day at Liverpool. Resilience!”
It was accompanied by a ‘muscles’ emoji and a picture of him celebrating after scoring against the Bees.
At 11:31am, a new post appeared, with the same picture and emoji, which read: “I wasn’t the best three weeks ago, nor am I the worst now.
“If I fall, I get up. You will never see me give up. I’m going to give it my all until my last day at Liverpool. Resilience!”
However, some angry fans accused him of snubbing them after the Villa game.
One supporter posted: “He’s done. I don’t like his attitude post-match at all.”
Another remarked: “I can accept missing open goals but Nunez was strolling most of the time he was on. Shocking attitude.”
The storm may now lead to Slot offloading Nunez this summer.
In another dig, the Anfield manager added: “I truly believe it is always best to have Wataru Endo’s mindset.
“For the whole season he does not complain, keeps on going and whenever we need him he is ready.
“It is not the chance Darwin missed but the 20 minutes afterwards that I will talk to him about.”
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