Nunez’s main problem is Nunez himself.
Everything else is secondary. 3 years in and he still has no command of English. He never went the extra mile to overcome his limitations and eventually he gave up.
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It’s not the coaching staff who decide who will have more output during a season.
We simply have better (or better performing) wingers/wide forwards and that’s it.
Even Diaz got picked up top a lot this season and 3 of our wingers are our top scorers. At different times, we picked different options because we didn’t have an outstanding one.
It’s not the coaching staff who told the likes of Nunez, Jota and Szobo “your numbers don’t have to be so high this season because our wingers will do most of the job”.
And not everything can be explained/understood through numbers.
Jota has more value in his time here than Nunez because he was/is a more successful player for us, very simple. He has his weaknesses also and it might be only this season that more fans are looking into it and the general love for him has dropped. His weaknesses were always there, even periods of his best form.
You can say that he’s on par with Nunez (and surely there has been periods when Nunez was more available and in better form) through some numbers but that doesn’t tell the full story. It’s just not watching or understanding football very well.
Bobby’s average was always more or less the same, the 17/18 season (27 goals) being the exception that proved the rule. Was his importance as high in a number of other seasons when his numbers were lower? Of course.
Jota is not a great option for the single striker role either. Slot probably looked at it last summer and thought that he has the best chance to be our first striker this season. I’d guess it was a combination of: pressing, ability to finish with both feet, game intelligence and being adroit in tight spaces. Looking at the combination of words Slot used either to describe Jota or what we want from our main striker.
It takes time also to get to know your players. Slot surely knows much better than last summer what we need in order to keep improving. It’s an eternal process.
Nunez is at the exit door and it’s not hard to understand why. Certain numbers (and looking at them alone) will not save him. If some will be surprised or shocked when he leaves, that’s more down to them.
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He might be fine in understanding English but would have some problems in speaking it.
I agree with his lack of improvement in football / goal scoring etc. That to me is the reason he’s on his way out. From what I’ve seen of him on the pitch , he doesn’t have a problem understanding his team mates.
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Just hope we get a sizable amount for him. If we get 45m, that’s some money that hopefully can be put to better use.
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As soon as the league is decided , at this point, I’d rather we give minutes to Chiesa. Even in the CF role if need be. There’s no further point to giving minutes to Jota and Nunez( even if he’s fit)
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Mo in the middle… Chiesa on the right cutting in
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Not sure Mo will like playing in the middle.
The other two forwards have to play around him.