It’s humorous… If Darwin Nunez was by no means signed by Jurgen Klopp and followers this summer time have been watching this deadly, bodily behemoth of a striker rating each sport for Uruguay, they’d be clamouring for Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes to convey him to Liverpool.
Nunez is on hearth for his nation. He’s scored in seven consecutive video games for Uruguay, the perfect document since Hector Sacrone in 1928.
These targets have are available in massive matches in opposition to massive opponents, too. He’s fired previous Colombia, Brazil, Argentina. He scored a hat-trick in opposition to Mexico and is 2 from two to date within the Copa America in opposition to Panama and Bolivia.
The issue for a lot of Liverpool followers is that they didn’t see a striker able to something shut on the finish of the season. The Uruguay Nunez is an enigma, and have become much more of 1 as final time period fizzled out.
On the finish of 2023/24, he went ten matches and not using a objective. You may’t do this as a Liverpool attacker. And it wasn’t like he didn’t get the possibilities to take action. His confidence was beneath zero and his ending was decrease.
From the excessive of the profitable objective in opposition to Nottingham Forest in March, which was midway by way of a run of 11 targets and 5 assists in 15 video games, Nunez fell off a cliff.
Why?
Nicely, in equity, his team-mates collectively collapsed as effectively. The legs ran out. The choices being made turned extra frantic and the strain to log out Klopp’s tenure with a Premier League title was clearly an excessive amount of. By the point Liverpool misplaced 2-0 to Everton at Goodison Park, it was over.
Many Liverpool followers counsel the set off for the downfall was Nunez’s foolish mistake in opposition to Manchester United within the FA Cup, the place he gave the ball away needlessly at 3-2 up in Additional Time. They went and scored after which grabbed a winner. It was a nasty error, however it wasn’t the one one. Mo Salah, for instance, had a worse finish of season run than he did – however with much less damaging defining moments.
It did appear that the connection between Nunez and Klopp soured a bit of. The striker deleted any connection to Liverpool from his social media accounts after on-line abuse circled and Klopp introduced Cody Gakpo again into the group at his expense.
Klopp leaving is in fact not a net-positive, however it is perhaps good for Nunez.
In spite of everything, he thrives underneath Marcelo Bielsa at worldwide stage. Who is aware of what makes Nunez tick? He’s an advanced, emotional, delicate footballer. He’s frenetic, sometimes silly, infantile and incompetent – with the penchant for real brilliance – because of a daft ability set stuffed with bodily, motion and ball-striking attributes.
Keep in mind, when Slot arrived, Liverpool loudly leaked to the on-beat journalists that Nunez was very a lot a part of his plans. There could be no discuss of a sale. Slot would fortunately have a crack at getting the perfect out of him.
Bielsa performs a 4-2-3-1 formation with Uruguay, with Nunez up prime, however allowed to run the left-channel. That is in all probability his finest place. Not solely up prime or on the left-wing, however a mixture of each, like Thierry Henry for Arsenal. Slot additionally performed 4-2-3-1 with Feyenoord.
Watching his Uruguay targets as a Liverpool fan is genuinely irritating. Proper-foot, left-foot, headed targets, with energy and precision.
A number of them although present him doing precisely what he does for Liverpool; hitting it laborious and on course. They undergo the keepers’ legs or simply previous him and everybody says, ‘nice end’. However he isn’t actually aiming right here. Final season, a loopy quantity of efforts Nunez had have been good, robust contacts on targets that merely hit the keeper. May he be extra delicate? Sure. However was he unfortunate? Completely. And don’t get me began on the variety of instances he hit the woodwork…
His situation is that each little bit of unhealthy luck noticed his confidence drop, and the extra this occurred, the much less possible it turned that his subsequent shot would hit the online.
With Uruguay, the alternative is occurring. An excellent summer time with Uruguay will hopefully see Nunez hit the bottom working in pre-season with Slot.
If he turns up bristling with vitality and pleasure to work underneath a brand new boss, it would simply click on.
