Minamino did fine. He was bought in as a gamble for a low fee.
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Nunez isnāt going to be the first guy who moves to a club and doesnāt quite deliver the goods.
He should be scoring a lot more but he isnāt. Nothing to do with his ability. Itās not working out for him.
The transfer fee is a concern, maybe thatās playing on his head. I donāt want him to leave as he does have the ability.
Iām putting you along with @Bekloppt in the questionable category for use of the word Gakkers.
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Thatās honestly really sad, from you. Horses for glue? Is that where we are?
I think itās on confidence. Heās not getting the final bit right.
For Uruguay, heās one of the main goal scoring threats if not the main. In Liverpool , thereās always the fear of failure for him. Heās going into the match knowing that Gakpo , Jota , Chiesa , Mo , Diaz are there who will be scoring those goals or be looking to score those goals as well. He seems to be the sort who would thrive in a 2 man forward system alongside a second striker or a #10. Not in the wnger based systems that we employ.
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A confident Nunez would probably find more service from the wingers or the midfielders and more goals.
Here the team isnāt passing to him that much either knowing heās not confident.
It might be well worth a shot to see how he plays against Palace. Get him in as a target man. Heās got the attributes for it.
He would likely be an absolute beast for a club like athletico that defends and plays more on the counter.
Think heās done more good than bad for us, but the inconsistency in his finishing remains a question mark offsetting how good he is at creating chances.
I donāt think that makes any sense. Graham said in his interview with The Athletic that their models identified NĆŗƱez as the best striker in Europe, but that he didnāt fit a JĆ¼rgen team stylistically. Thatās not the problem that most people seem to be identifying here.
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Why would you get a striker doesnāt fit how the team plays? Then you end up catering for him at the detriment of the team.
Presumably JĆ¼rgen saw it as the next evolution of his team? I genuinely wouldnāt know.
All I know is that the interview said something along the lines of him scoring really high on essentially all their metrics, if I recall correctly. Thatās why his current struggles are really at odds with the narrative that Edwards wouldnāt have sanctioned such a move.
But I donāt know if heās underperforming on those same metrics or not right now. It doesnāt look good for him, but I think thereās a reason he still plays, and Iām not sure itās just his price tag.
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The whole piece on Nunez with Graham:
The signing of Darwin Nunez from Benfica for an initial fee of Ā£64million in June 2022 was largely driven by Klopp after the Uruguayanās impressive performances against Liverpool in the Champions League.
As Kloppās power and influence increased, did the club move away from their data-led model?
āNunez played brilliantly against Liverpool and that has an effect on people,ā Graham says. āIt didnāt do him any harm in becoming a Liverpool player.
āThe difficulty with Nunez was that he was a very different type of player to Firmino. My questions were: āAre we going to change our style or formation for him?ā Is he a good enough player that it might be worth making those changes?ā. It was something we had resisted for many years.
āWe went through the same data process for Nunez as with other players. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew what a big change it would be with Nunez. It was more, āAre we sure weāre going to make the best use of him?ā.
āI talk in the book about classifying players to understand what their role is. Itās different to whether they are any good or not. We always had a list of āgreat players but not for Liverpoolā. Defensive full-backs, target men, crossing wingers ā we just didnāt play in that style. It was clear that Nunez was a No 9.
āI wouldnāt say that the data said no to Nunez. Itās more āif we sign this player we have to understand this is the role weāve seen him be effective in and is there currently a slot for him in our squad?ā. And if youāre spending a large amount of money on a player then he has to start. The worst thing you can do is buy a squad player and spend money that could be out there on the pitch.ā
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And of course, as we know, data isnāt everything: good morning.
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Iāve been making the confidence excuse for him for 2 years now!
Iām not convinced the final bit is going to come right. Canāt seem to get in right positions and time his runs. The offside goal was really poor. He had so much time to arc his run and was looking right at the defender.
There were other examples of excellent balls being played through to him that ended up looking like bad balls because of his run.
Heāll score the odd screamer but just canāt see him as a consistent finisher in our system. Like I said, I really hope Iām proved wrong
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I might be misremembering (and certainly the quality of the stream was debatable at best), but I thought he was looking at the ball, having checked that the defender on his left was ahead of him at first, but then the defender slowed his run to catch NĆŗƱez offside.
Iām wondering if weād even be talking about this if it was any other playerā¦
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I always had the feeling that Klopp was signing him as a compensation for missing out on Haaland and wanting to show that we could still play with the big boys. Sadly that was (arguably) achieved by spunking a ridiculous amount on a raw talent.
Thought he done ok last night and I donāt buy this whole confidence issue. When youāve lost confidence, naturally you crawl up into your shell and the game passes you by, no? He had a few efforts on goal, competing to win duels, blabbing off towards the ref for a foul against him 
, led the press well from the front in the 60mins he was on and involved in the build up to the first goal with good hold up play and a nice lay off. Ok he was caught offside once but heās still determined to make those runs into the space. These arenāt the signs of a player lacking confidence.
I do believe this patient, more methodical approach in our build up is one heās struggling to adapt to as he canāt show off his usual threatening self. Ideally he wouldāve had more of an impact so far this season, then again heās played 310mins of football.
Once again I was far more concerned with our defending down our right side that first half which led to them hitting the post and Ali having to bail us out.
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Think when he lost the first 3 duels in the second half, Slot immediately called up Jota to start preparing to come in.
Whereas in previous seasons heād get in dangerous positions and usually miss, this season he isnāt getting to dangerous spots to begin with.
I think that heās finding it difficult to adapt his game to Slotās demands and it has affected his confidence. Itās clear in his movement (lack of), hesitation and propensity not to shoot as much.
That said, I wouldnāt look too much into his performance last night. He was ill during the week, we donāt know how fit he was.
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The change of structure, having a #10/second striker behind/alongside him shoud actually help him. But itās not the only problem, there isnāt only one. I donāt think it will be enough.
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Depends on the type of glue 