Good luck to Darwin Nunez. He will surely depart this summer. We all know the score - great athletic gifts, let down by the finishing. It wasn’t to be.
Hopefully we get a good fee to reinvest. And hopefully he feels the love of the fans as the season comes to a close. Sometimes things don’t work out, but you can still end it as well as possible.
I think there is a difference here. Jota has never been viewed as a regular starter but someone who was the back up. Nunez was signed with a view to him becoming a key part of the starting attack. Furthermore, we create an awful lot more than Newcastle do, don’t we - and part of the criticism of Nunez is around missing some of those chances that look fairly straight forward - so I don’t know how that may affect the relevance of those stats?
Don’t try too hard to normalize the data. The pure fact is he only scored 9, 11, and 5 (will he score more this season?) in the league in 3 seasons with us. That number will never be good enough for a main striker. simple that.
What do you mean by “try too hard to normalize the data”?
Or are you just ignoring whatever doesn’t agree with your viewpoint?
Is that the case?
Those columns are (league) games played, starts, and minutes.
Jota has been starting most of his games played.
And for a large part of the past two seasons he’s created a lot of those chances himself. His finishing has been discussed ad nauseam already, and while it isn’t sparkling, it’s average at worst.
The question is, can Isak do so much that we could effectively trade Núñez in for him (by selling him on somewhere else) without too much of a premium that the buying club might as well just buy Isak for themselves, while making enough of a difference?
I’m more sceptical than that. I’m also a lot more sceptical than most people about transfer activity because people always seem to expect far more activity than we actually have done.
Maybe he’ll leave, maybe he won’t. He already is a good player, and he could still do a lot better if his finishing and mentality were more consistent. But Arne’s words in the press conference yesterday should give people far more pause.
You already know the answer.
It’s common sense to expect the team to become better. I don’t think anyone else is satisfied with a 10-goal-a-season striker. It’s mid-table level, and rightly to demand a new one. I don’t think it’s that hard to understand.
They are the exact same numbers Bobby posted for us in his last 3 seasons, so you are saying that Firmino wasn’t good enough for us?
Both played in the middle of a front 3, so are centre forwards. Looking a bit deeper, Darwin’s assists stats for the 3 seasons are 3, 8 and 2. Bobby’s assists in his last 3 seasons were 7, 4, 4. So both gave the exact same goal contributions over 3 seasons.
Apples to oranges is bullshit. if you write Darwin off due to his goal scoring, the you need to apply the same logic to Bobby or you are talking complete and utter crap.
Bobby is the only one whom Klopp directly mentioned as the system. He could be the most important player in Klopp’s system. Nunez, on the other hand, is Slot’s third-choice CF, after a winger and a half-fit striker.
Compare them its like not watching us at all.
I think this is wrong because it ignores what else, if anything they provide in that role.
However, its worth remembering that the same criticism was often applied by fans to Bobby - and was seen as a factor in why we sought to bring in a player such as Nunez over another false 9.
According to who?
I understand he was a winger.
He’s no fox in the box so what kind of stiker do you ‘want’ him to be?
It’s also worth noting that we have, and are keeping, a main goal scorer. No other ‘striker’ for us has been particularly prolific. Diaz looks even worst than Nunez in that position imo.
Surely if we want a striker we need to find a 10 who can compliment someone, no? Someone running about in space just doesn’t do it!
That was more because finding a comparable player was such a difficult prospect, but it is right to remember that Bobby’s lack of direct productivity was why lots of fans quickly came to view Jota as preferable to him
We still need someone to play through the centre and we haven’t got anyone. That’s the point. To find someone who does fit in there with our ‘system’ is not going to be easy. As shown by us bringing in a winger, Nunez, to lead the line.
The problem will stay the same!
As a striker when playing in a front 2 he liked to pull off into the left half space, meaning his heat map at Benfica was not too different than you see from the player who plays on the left of a 3, which is why there were periods where it looked like that might be the best option for him here
I think with our wingers demanding the ball more and more , our system isn’t conducive in terms of goal outputs to out and out strikers or forward players used to playing in a team of the front two.
Nunez has plenty of qualities that potentially make him a very valuable player for Liverpool. But due to our system being what it is , we aren’t in a position to maximize him.
And also , his profilgacy in terms of goals did play an equally important role. You don’t expect a forward to be having those lack of goals.
He might come good in other premier league sides. Arsenal springs to mind immediately. But not for us. Serie A will be probably apt for him but don’t think any serie A clubs will pay the required transfer fee.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
Mo in the middle… Chiesa on the right cutting in
