Jurgen Klopp names surprising Liverpool strike as one his 'favourite goals ever'

Jurgen Klopp has called Darwin Nunez's comical strike against Sheffield United on Thursday one of his 'favourite ever' goals.

Liverpool's Uruguayan number nine opened the scoring at Anfield under the lights in unorthodox fashion, getting rewarded after chasing down Sheffield United's Ivo Grbić and seeing the keeper's attempted clearance deflect into an empty net.

It was a rarely-seen type of goal that seemed to confound xG modelling.

xGphilosophy posted that Darwin's goal "confused" their model, while FotMob recorded it as sitting at just 0.08xG — a score normally associated with an unbelievably difficult finish rather than one the striker had little real-time awareness of.

A Klopp favourite

However, manager Klopp was in no doubt about the merits of the unusual effort and was quick to praise his striker's persistence in pressing after the game, even ranking it as one of his favourite ever goals — a sentiment many might have expected reserved instead for Alexis Mac Allister's wonderstrike later in the night.

He told reporters: "We scored one of my favourite goals ever, 1-0, because I think from time to time a striker needs that kind of thing.

"I ask him quite a lot to press the opponent and it's quite rare that you get really close enough to have this kind of block, but he did and then scores, 1-0. That's great."

Darwin's deflection also marked a major milestone for the forward, putting him on 30 goal contributions for the season.

The goal was the 24-year-old's 18th in all competitions (11 in the Premier League), while he also has 12 assists.

He managed 19 goal contributions in all of the 2022/23 campaign.