Darwin Nunez represents nothing but frustration for Liverpool

Over the past five months or so, two strikers have been playing for Liverpool. One of them is the character of Hanna-Barbera. His shoes are two sizes too big. His darting movements in and around the penalty area – a length of grass that seems to alternately turn to ice or quicksand under his feet – are recorded by circus music. American Fotoplayer. holds a Fleeting resemblance to Andy Carroll. He has a bad habit of running after everyone and then being surprised at how much space he finds himself in, and generally plays his position as if you get partial credit for hitting the posts behind the net.

The other two strikers took the finish in stride when they scored in the 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Wolverhampton in the FA Cup last weekend. He now has 10 goals in all competitions this season, making him the team’s second top scorer. It pretty much does all the things it’s supposed to do. He’s constantly running around, and you can never tell he didn’t have any impact on the match. He’s the kind of adventurous, energetic player Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp seems to like. He often sneaks into the last defender’s blind spot, making himself a backline nuisance, and does a good job when he gets a good serve. When the play doesn’t build up from behind as well or as quickly as Liverpool would like, he’ll drop and push the ball forward himself.

The curiosity here is that these two strikers are both wearing no. 27 jersey, same as the 23-year-old. Darwin Nunez arrived from Benfica in the summer for £85m after a break season in which he more than quadrupled his previous season’s Primeira Liga tally (from six to 26) and Assist Portuguese side Liverpool pushed themselves to the brink of elimination in a 10-goal thriller in the Champions League. This summer it looked like Nunez was joining England’s second best permanent side, the one he just joined Quarterback poetry show—which no English team has yet done. But over the course of this year’s season, Liverpool have begun to emerge as a team capable of maintaining their relevance. They are 16 points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, never mind their usual rivals Manchester City, and are locked in an FA Cup third-round replay against a team finishing second-to-bottom.

As a show of strength and presence after losing 3-1 to Brainford in the Premier League last week, Klopp has produced a solid side in a bid to retain at least one of Liverpool’s titles from last season. Even Wolves’ new coach Julen Lopetegui complained beforehand That his team will have two days less to prepare for a match – a classic tactic for lowering expectations when facing a team you clearly expect to lose to. But then the wolves did not lose. In the 26th minute it looked like Liverpool had suddenly done so disconnected; Wolves’ first goal was gifted through Goncalo Guedes by a distraught Alisson who volleyed the ball straight into the striker’s path. It came as a result of the naturally safe Thiago Alcantara attempting some slow gradients on the edge of his own box.

But back to Núñez, who just minutes earlier attempted an infamous overhead kick from a deflected ball off the foot of the Wolverhampton defender, who hit something between a pass or shot from Mohamed Salah. chance of absolutely nothing. There is a temptation in the impartial viewer to suggest that if this happened – a cat-like display of athleticism, which Nunez is capable of but has yet to use enough for Liverpool, then perhaps it was a start. Something Especially for Uruguay. A kind of uncontrollable snowball momentum eventually led to “world class” and “club legend” status. Until then, according to Internet residentsit’s a failure.

And it is hardly his fault that he came into the Premier League at the same time as Erling Haaland scored 21 league goals this season for north-west rivals Liverpool. It’s hard to ignore that Núñez, in contrast, leads the league by some distance in “Big Missed Chances” every 90 minutes. Liverpool’s defense of this statistic is that In order to miss great opportunities, one must first get into risky situations, a kind of creative accounting that follows the once again 23-year-old Uruguayer. The feeling of incompleteness about Núñez easily turns into promise of potential if you consider how close he is to being the perfect big guy you need in the title installment, ripped straight from a soft drink ad. He’s broad-shouldered, a shade under 6-foot-2, religiously committed to journalism, and has all the requisite tattoos. He causes the most destruction in the channel, but is able to win with a header and bring the most creative elements of Liverpool’s midfield into play.

This kind of bargaining about Nunez’s ability is likely to continue until he scores five goals against Real Madrid. Klopp claims he sees “a lot of similarities” between the Uruguay and Robert Lewandowski, who managed him at Dortmund when Lewandowski withdrew Similar achievement. Of course, the comparison was to illustrate just how far Nunez would have to go:We had shooting sessions where he didn’t finish one of them. “

There are bigger reasons for concern at Liverpool, however, and that is that the defence: once well-organized and impregnable, it already conceded nearly as many goals in the Premier League than in the whole of last season, and centre-back Virgil van Dijk is sidelined with a major hamstring injury. Without the toughness at the back, how can Liverpool throw everything forward and put teams to sword like they used to?

This makes moments of pure synergy like Nunez’s 45th-minute FA Cup goal all the more frustrating. On a false run, Trent Alexander-Arnold blasted into space down right. Núñez swooped in and raised his hand to pass back up to the middle of the circle, breaking through the Wolves defenders. Alexander-Arnold’s perfect cross early, beat every defender, and caught the keeper in no man’s land. Without breaking his stride, Núñez rolled the cross from his leg into the far corner.

In the second half, it was unknown.