Jota and Nunez both grabbed a brace when Liverpool swept Bournemouth away on a windy Sunday in the south coast.
Nunez opened the scoring 4 minutes into the second half with his 100th career goal after finishing off a well worked team goal from the Reds.
With 20 minutes remaining, Jurgen Klopp made another crucial substitution: Cody Gakpo came off the bench to set up Jota for the visitors’ second goal at the half. Ten minutes later, the Portugal forward netted a superb third.
Max Aarons had pulled up with a hamstring injury just before the 90th minute, this had added to Bournemouth’s injury woes, however Iraola had already made 5 substitutions which meant that the Cherries had to finish the game with 10 men.
Liverpool capitalised on that advantage as Joe Gomez crossed in an inviting ball for Nunez to clinically finish it off. This was a statement win for the Reds as they can brush aside opponents without key figures like Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endo due to injuries and international duties.
Curtis Jones’ possibly concerning injury, which caused him to hobble off in the latter stages, was the only negative aspect of the afternoon for the Reds.
Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk said after the game: “Hopefully. You need a bit of luck, you need no injuries, you need good results. So far, so good.“
“But you see today, Curtis is maybe injured. We saw Mo (Salah) go off in the Africa Cup of Nations. These things don’t help but let’s see.
“We take each game as it comes, as we always done in the past as well. We have to keep the momentum and confidence. We’ll see what it brings at the end of the season.”
Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said: “It’s much better being in that position than any other position. We play in three days again and again so we have to get through this period and we need players back.“
“When we have momentum, we are good. When we start like we did today, we are not good. So we should make sure we should start games with better rhythm. Because it’s not an attitude things, the players want to [start better].”
“The second half was much better. The opponent was in a good moment and I actually thought we made a bad start. We gave them momentum unnecessarily.”
“We were not flexible enough, went long when we should have gone short and short when we should have gone long.”
“The left side was completely static. But I told the boys at half-time it was good news. We hadn’t been great but it was still 0-0.”
“We changed formation and all of a sudden we were much more fluent. The support for the front line was much better. We were calm.”
On the other hand, Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola praised Liverpool’s intensity and hinted that signings may need to be made due to the severity of their injury crisis.
“I think they were much better in the second half and were much more intense. They were winning the second duels and were much more clinical. We had corners and some shots but didn’t score the goal when it was still 0-0. In the end they were better.“
“We have to be at our best to compete with this opposition. We kept the game quite level for a while but as soon as we conceded the first goal probably, they did things more quickly and they made us pay.”
“They were more intense. We weren’t so aggressive or made the fouls that we needed to make. The physicality they put into the game you have to match. We did this for a lot of minutes but didn’t keep that level.”
Iraola also said injuries to the defence may force his club’s hand in the final nine days of the January transfer window.”
“I think we will lose Max Aarons as we played with 10 men. He felt something,” he said. “You never want injuries but especially with [other full-backs out] you don’t want. Now we have to think.”
“We have another cup game close and we will have to see who is available. We will be thin in this defensive side.”
Bournemouth play Swansea next at home in the FA Cup on January 25 before heading to West Ham in the Premier League on February 1.
Liverpool have their second leg of the Carabao Cup semi final against Fulham at Craven Cottage on January 24 before hosting Norwich in the FA Cup on January 28.
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