Darwin Nunez

[miller0863]

Or Isak

[BOBPAISLEYFAN]

The upside of Nunez is primarily the chaos and energy he brings to the table, unfortunately his lack of awareness, game intelligence, decision making and total lack of composure when required is proving to be a real problem at the moment.

Lets bear in mind the fact that following Mane and Firmino was always going to be a tough act to follow, but unfortunately for Nunez he has simply not achieved anything like the level of goalscoring required, that would allow everyone to forgive his obvious shortcomings as mentioned above.

In fact and a more worrying element for me, is the fact that there does not appear to have been much improvement in any of his play since he arrived. I just don't know whether it is because he has simply failed to grasp the English language properly and as such struggles to communicate with his team mates or whether, in reality this is as good as he is ever going to be..

I thought at the time that the basis of his purchase seemed very much like the rational around the purchase of Minamino, who like Nunez, had played really well against us in European competition, but unfortunately like Nunez now, simply failed to replicate anything like the same levels of performance for Liverpool FC.

Hey ho, we live in hope…

[Kev0909]

Or Isak

Even solanke would be better.

There's quite a few better strikers, just in this league

which is not good when we're one of the best clubs.

[BOBPAISLEYFAN]

Or Isak

Isak is very similar in many ways to Gakpo, unfortunately for us, Isak is playing out of his skin and Gakpo isnt… ��

[miller0863]

Isak is a much better centre forward than Gakpo I’m afraid.

The problem Nunez has is that he’s not even causing chaos anymore, he’s just jogging through games, no movement and not even winning any aerial challenges.

[teesred]

The form of Nunez Salah and Diaz lately has had a huge impact. Diaz maybe not as much but he should still have comfortably won us the City game.
I do like Nunez and Diaz but we need better finishers for next season.

[Nineteenx]

Diaz infuriates me the most he wastes so many opportunities to score and create if he was decisive & played one & two touch & played the ball or took the shot when they were on he’d serve us far better

Nunez is infuriating because he has games when he’s really good including doing the hard yards No9 donkey work, then he thinks he’s the shit & starts strolling around only ever looking for the ball in behind through the centre

And the playing right across the line picking it up deep and advanced right left & centre & linking play & switches, worrying defenders, getting in front of them to get hold of thr ball or win the header or do enough so they can’t get a good header, all go out of the window

[Insidious]

unfortunately for Nunez he has simply not achieved anything like the level of goalscoring required, that would allow everyone to forgive his obvious shortcomings

Open questions here -

- Do people still expect £350k-per-week Salah to be the main goalscorer? If so, how close to that should Darwin be?
- What number of goals would people like from Núñez per season?

I ask because a lot of chat with Darwin seems to be around the number of goals scored. If I recall correctly (open to correction of course) Gakpo was our top scorer in the League Cup this season, Núñez our top scorer in the Europa, FA Cup I can't remember (could Google later) and Salah our top Premier League scorer.

I guess a factor as to why I ask is Salah, who is so often heralded as our attacking talisman and the man worth paying the huge contract, has 17 Premier League goals for the season, of which 5 were penalties.

So Salah has 12 Premier League goals from open play, whereas Núñez has 11 Premier League goals and (again, if I recall correctly) I believe they're all from open play this season.

Before anyone gets it twisted, I am not saying Salah is the problem, or that Núñez is as good a player as Salah is - and yes, Salah missed some of the season with injury so no doubt his goals-per-minute will be better. I just don't think Núñez is doing all that badly, despite my own frustrations with the inconsistency of his finishing (shared by many) and his current malaise in form where I feel he is a bit burnt out.

[Frasier]

Salah is on the decline Sid but earned his contract through being an amazing goal scorer over several seasons for us. Compare what Salah was doing at age 24/25 to what Nunez is doing right now.

[Insidious]

Salah is on the decline Sid but earned his contract through being an amazing goal scorer over several seasons for us. Compare what Salah was doing at age 24/25 to what Nunez is doing right now.

I'm not calling Salah's ability or contribution into question, so I hope it doesn't come across that way.

But Núñez literally gets described as a Carroll-esque figure by some of our fanbase and I feel if we get the composition of the attack right, he can absolutely play a massive part in it.