Darwin Nunez - Thoughts?

[Barrington Womble]

1 minute ago, Tj hooker said:

I'll rephrase the comment you never know what he's going to do next and say he can be unpredictable and difficult to play against @Barrington Womble

 

Fair enough. I think an example of what he does is that first goal today. On the match thread @Caramac has just posted a great angle of it. I don't think it's unpredictable. It's just he's making moves like that all of the time, out with one centre back and as soon as the other centre back is a bit off position, attack the space. It's a classic centre forwards movement. We don't very often take advantage of it, because either we don't move the ball quickly enough or often, the attack breaks down before that final ball to him or as I think most of the time, we aren't really looking for it. It took two first touch passes today to take advantage. 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

2 hours ago, etho said:

Carragher with his Captain chaos comments is really irritating. His general play and decision making is excellent, he holds the ball up, links play and presses intelligently. 

Typical lazy pundit comment that, predictably embraced by people not capable of making their own judgement.

[El Dangerous]

Made up for him today. It won’t be his ‘turning point’. He is what he is, a good strikers who will miss more than he scores capable of sublime moments and stupendous misses. Just enjoy the ride, he could be world class but what he is at this moment is enough for now.

[Vincent Vega]

3 hours ago, Mark M said:

10 Goals & 10 Assists… 

Same number of goals, and more assists than Saka and Martinelli combined.

[Arniepie]

Made up for him

[Bjornebye]

Seems he’s a Celtic fan and all. He’s perfect 

 

 

[Saintslfc13]

10 hours ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

He is at his best when he has no time to think. Both finishes today were first time hits. More of that, please.

Been saying this the whole time, I think Salah not being around has something to do with it too. He knows now that he has to score whereas when Mo is here he can always defer to him.

[Scott_M]

If Nunez can add another >12 league goals come end of the season, I think we win the league.

[dave u]

 

Waking up to see this thread halfway down the first page.

 

"TD_LFC...... Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?? 3 Stacks, where are you? Chris, let's be having you!!"

[TD_LFC]

Same place people were in the first half or during his 15 game run....

 

Did well yesterday and for the last few games, firing the ball into him quickly and not giving him a chance to think about it worked so maybe that's the solution going forward mixed with shifting him around the front line depending on the opposition.

 

Glad he picked it up in the second half because people were on his back in the match thread for dropping his head and hiding.

[3 Stacks]

I've said loads of positive things about him when he isn't being a donkey or missing open goals, so not sure  I need to be called out really.

[Elite]

3 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

I've said loads of positive things about him when he isn't being a donkey or missing open goals, so not sure  I need to be called out really.

I've never known such tribalism surrounding a player.

 

It's the first time he's scored in ages and all the fanboys are out in force. Now I'm happy he's scored 2 yesterday and want as much as anyone for him to kick on and be a superstar for us but he's still wildly frustrating and nowhere near that level yet. He'll continue to miss sitters and also have great games but praise and criticism is both warranted.

 

 

[andyj]

12 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

I've said loads of positive things about him when he isn't being a donkey or missing open goals, so not sure  I need to be called out really.

Nobody should be calling anybody out. Yes he can be a frustrating player but with 10 assists and 10 goals this season he has played his part but I think the biggest issue is that we paid over the odds for him and people expected a Haaland type of player banging in a goal or 2 a game. For me aslong as he keeps getting in the right positions and giving his all eventually I think it will all go right for him. Yes at times he can be abit of a donkey but he is our donkey.

[Strontium]

51 minutes ago, Elite said:

I've never known such tribalism surrounding a player.

 

It's the first time he's scored in ages and all the fanboys are out in force. Now I'm happy he's scored 2 yesterday and want as much as anyone for him to kick on and be a superstar for us but he's still wildly frustrating and nowhere near that level yet. He'll continue to miss sitters and also have great games but praise and criticism is both warranted.

 

I'm pleased that he's meeting the challenge laid down by so many on this forum. In particular, my recent suggestion that Ivan Toney might outscore him in the league, despite missing half the season, appears to have spurred him into action. Will I get any credit though? Not a chance.

[TheHowieLama]

2 hours ago, Elite said:

I've never known such tribalism surrounding a player.

 

It's the first time he's scored in ages

 

Yep, three weeks - fuckin drought that.

[Elite]

12 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

 

Yep, three weeks - fuckin drought that.

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Shit video, but a great celebration: Darwin and Macca enjoying a lovely drink of maté.

 

[3 Stacks]

4 hours ago, andyj said:

Nobody should be calling anybody out. Yes he can be a frustrating player but with 10 assists and 10 goals this season he has played his part but I think the biggest issue is that we paid over the odds for him and people expected a Haaland type of player banging in a goal or 2 a game. For me aslong as he keeps getting in the right positions and giving his all eventually I think it will all go right for him. Yes at times he can be abit of a donkey but he is our donkey.

There's a balance to be found in the discourse, which is what I've been saying. I think everyone knows what he is at this point, and it's something I also said when we signed him; he isn't actually that different from the forwards we have signed in the past. 

 

It was a departure from a standpoint that he's a bigger player, more of a 9, but the idea was the same; He is a very high volume player in the final 3rd, like Salah, specifically. It was not a foreign idea.

 

He takes lots of shots, creates lots of danger in good areas, and that type of player will often not seem super clinical because they are so present in the majority of attacks and you simply can't finish every chance. We have seen it for years with Salah and Mane, there was always talk they aren't great finishers.

 

But last season, he was simply not good enough in many aspects, on and off ball, and this season he has been mostly dreadful in front of goal. Like, much too dreadful, despite my paragraph above. These are inescapable things no matter how much people want to ignore them or focus only on the positives. Klopp talked about the issues last season and this season it's very, very easy to look up how bad his finishing has been.

 

The thing ultimately is that the people who are wrong are the people who think Klopp and the club would give up on him or that it's not working out. Though, he still has much to prove and there is question whether he will ever be a main man, these things are not true. He is the future of this club because when we invest big under Klopp, right or wrong, we put our trust in these investments. 

 

 

[Strontium]

As I said after we signed him, the player he reminds me of is Zlatan, and for many years on this very forum, Zlatan was a byword for shit, even though he very clearly wasn't shit, nevertheless the idea that this kind of treatment for this type of player by this fanbase is something new or unique, is very far from the mark.

[Supremolad]

The "he is good when he doesn't have time to think" narrative has undertones of him being too thick or not capable of thinking clearly unless he does things instinctively. There is evidence to the contrary though. Apart from the assists he has created, a good number of his goals haven't been reliant on instinct.

 

The first goal he scored yesterday, he actually thought quite quickly where he wanted to place the shot and executed it quicker than the goalie could react. The one he scored vs Burnley is another in which he had time to think and did so quickly by going for a side foot to the far corner. Nunez just gets judged by different standards in which instinct and quick thinking get conflated as a bad thing.

[Pidge]

Won't somebody please think of the Zlatan!

[kemskem]

6 hours ago, TD_LFC said:

Glad he picked it up in the second half because people were on his back in the match thread for dropping his head and hiding.

I was listening to Jermain Defoe talking about him after the match and apart from admiring his finishing (second goal in particular), he said he respects the fact that he just keeps going, keeps getting chances and hasn’t hidden like other players might. That’s spot on in my view.

[Jimmy Hills Chin]

26 minutes ago, Pidge said:

Won't somebody please think of the Zlatan!

Zlatan thinks enough about the Zlatan for everyone

[Lee909]

1 minute ago, kemskem said:

I was listening to Jermain Defoe talking about him after the match and apart from admiring his finishing (second goal in particular),

 

 

Thought the second goal was a weird finish myself. Doesn't matter as it went in but just modern players being so one footed. Strange going with his right foot imo

[VladimirIlyich]

Top of the league and setting up goals and scoring them regularly. Regularly selected by the best manager in the world and he's a bit shit? What educated discourse that some bring to the table.