Darwin Núñez

[Buzzo]

Ian Wright did a good segment on Darwin on Saturday explaining and illustrating how with a bit more composure he could have delivered an extra 5+ goals. As we all know all the raw potential is there, am sure he will get there with the Language - not easy but will help having loads of people who speak both languages surrounding him.

[ame]https://twitter.com/anfieldedition/status/1655140370215235586[/ame]

[Buzzo]

Fair play but I imagine every player takes as many lessons as necessary to learn the language. The Klopp and instructions bit is a bit silly IMO - this happens in training and we have many Spanish speakers who can step in and help. It shouldn’t be so detrimental that it “can’t work”

At both Almeria and Benfica he exploded after a settling year - if he upped his conversion rate then the numbers would look really good. It’s his seeming inability to play intricate football in tight spaces (a la Mo, Bobby and Sadio) that is the biggest issue. He’s an off the shoulder finisher - it’s not how we look set up to play.

I think he’d thrive in a counter attacking side - United or Spurs being good examples

[Doc_Piptorious]

Fair play but I imagine every player takes as many lessons as necessary to learn the language. The Klopp and instructions bit is a bit silly IMO - this happens in training and we have many Spanish speakers who can step in and help. It shouldn’t be so detrimental that it “can’t work”

At both Almeria and Benfica he exploded after a settling year - if he upped his conversion rate then the numbers would look really good. It’s his seeming inability to play intricate football in tight spaces (a la Mo, Bobby and Sadio) that is the biggest issue. He’s an off the shoulder finisher - it’s not how we look set up to play.

I think he’d thrive in a counter attacking side - United or Spurs being good examples

Think that may become less of an issue if we get a midfield that can hold the ball and play it forward more often tbh.

Also think we are moving away from the intricate play up front of some years back.

Jota is certainly not a tight space intricate play forward either, and Diaz, whilst having very good close control, is quite a direct player as well.

Of the more recent attacking players that we have bought (Jota, Diaz, Darwin and Gakpo), it is only Gakpo that excels at the more intricate close quarters style of play and from what I gather he was more direct when he played in Holland.

Agree that Darwin could be very good in a counter attacking team, but then again he was excelling in his last season at Benfica and they are a team that use a midfield that presses high, doing the close quarters play, that then releases the attackers and they can do so whether they are playing a bigger team in the CL where they do not have as much of the ball (counter attacking) or in their own league during games where they have most of the ball, similar to us, and letting the midfield and wide forwards pull the other team around before creating the chances for Darwin.

[Buzzo]

That’s his issue really, our formation requires a 9 to be able to drop in to create space for our wide players and he is less effective than Diaz or Salah. He doesn’t have the skills to hold the ball up and is losing out to Gakpo through the middle.

So we can look to use him like City use Halaand, but he is not as prolific. Look at Halaand last night, he touched the ball about 5 times, but you keep him on the pitch because of his conversion rate.

[Paul12]

Of course it would.

The moment you have to translate something then nuances will start being lost, not to mention cultural nuances and if you have to have three parties involved then things like tone gets lost as well.


My Irish and German are about on par with my english, and little jokes or expressions often get lost in the mix when speaking with native speakers from a different gaeltacht background or a native German as I will often say something the same way I would say it in english (as in a literal almost word for word translation) and some of the meaning can then be lost.

Hell even when I lived in Germany, actual Germans from where I was living complained about not always getting what Germans from further north or out East were saying. Was not that the language was the problem, was more down to dialects and the little quirks that can come from such.

And Pep would be inserting plugs for his book ("As I say in chapter 4..."), which might confuse him if he is not sure what a book is.

[Doc_Piptorious]

That’s his issue really, our formation requires a 9 to be able to drop in to create space for our wide players and he is less effective than Diaz or Salah. He doesn’t have the skills to hold the ball up and is losing out to Gakpo through the middle.

So we can look to use him like City use Halaand, but he is not as prolific. Look at Halaand last night, he touched the ball about 5 times, but you keep him on the pitch because of his conversion rate.

Whilst not a big sample of games, he did exactly that game after game in the CL the season before we got him and he did it against some really good back lines not least our own.

He gave VVD a really hard game and was able to go at him physically and also hold the ball then lay it off to the Benfica midfielders that were breaking.


As for the nine in our formation. That is the formation from when we were in our pomp. There is no guarantee that is how we will set up next season if we get the players Klopp wants, whomever they may be.


I do think we bought him to be the Haaland in our team albeit closer to how Darwin was for Benfica than how Haaland is for City.

Looking at Diaz on the left, he is much closer in style to the forwards Darwin played with before than Salah or Mane.

For my money Darwin needs to be the sharp end of the spear in order to be truly effective. He can finish and he can drag CBs around with him which would create space for other direct players like Diaz or Jota.

Will he do that for us? Who knows. Hopefully he does.

[Doc_Piptorious]

And Pep would be inserting plugs for his book ("As I say in chapter 4..."), which might confuse him if he is not sure what a book is.

Of course Darwin knows what a book is. He is South American, not Australian.

[Buzzo]

Would be great if he does as he is completely different to any forward we’ve had in ages. Fingers crossed.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Would be great if he does as he is completely different to any forward we’ve had in ages. Fingers crossed.

[Irishnev]

Think that may become less of an issue if we get a midfield that can hold the ball and play it forward more often tbh.

Also think we are moving away from the intricate play up front of some years back.

Jota is certainly not a tight space intricate play forward either, and Diaz, whilst having very good close control, is quite a direct player as well.

Of the more recent attacking players that we have bought (Jota, Diaz, Darwin and Gakpo), it is only Gakpo that excels at the more intricate close quarters style of play and from what I gather he was more direct when he played in Holland.

Agree that Darwin could be very good in a counter attacking team, but then again he was excelling in his last season at Benfica and they are a team that use a midfield that presses high, doing the close quarters play, that then releases the attackers and they can do so whether they are playing a bigger team in the CL where they do not have as much of the ball (counter attacking) or in their own league during games where they have most of the ball, similar to us, and letting the midfield and wide forwards pull the other team around before creating the chances for Darwin.

Agree on Jota but his goals (pre injury) outweighed his lack of technical ability. Pre current run I was very much in the sell him mindset given his injury record and seemingly turning to **** in front of goal.

I like Nunez - you can see he really wants to go well and tries v hard and Anfield has taken to him. He missed a lot of chances which has clearly knocked his confidence but we all hope next year will be better and so on. It makes no sense to sell him as we won’t get our money back but there are worries for me.

Technical ability - as mentioned above
Not understanding the pressing triggers
Set pieces - he’s been **** at defending them, Bobby was great at heading away corners and free kicks. Nunez let’s people run off him but Klopp should just tell him stand on the halfway line and sprint on the break

I’ll be honest - I didn’t think he was so raw and I expected more but I’ve seen enough to suggest he could explode next year. He deserves more time.

[Kenneth]

Thing is, raw is a description you use for youth or academy players, not 23 year olds. There is a near endless supply of talented but raw players and only a handful that develop the finesse to be top players. You don’t buy a £65m 23 year old and expect raw or potential, at 23, raw and ‘bags of potential’ means not good enough. So at the moment, we’re hoping he improves a lot, in an equivalent way that we do for the other players at the club looking to break into first team, but we’re £65m and £140,000 a week into him. So best keep everything crossed.

[rudedog]

May he's just an all round slow learner

[danperkins]

Fair play but I imagine every player takes as many lessons as necessary to learn the language. The Klopp and instructions bit is a bit silly IMO - this happens in training and we have many Spanish speakers who can step in and help. It shouldn’t be so detrimental that it “can’t work”

At both Almeria and Benfica he exploded after a settling year - if he upped his conversion rate then the numbers would look really good. It’s his seeming inability to play intricate football in tight spaces (a la Mo, Bobby and Sadio) that is the biggest issue. He’s an off the shoulder finisher - it’s not how we look set up to play.

I think he’d thrive in a counter attacking side - United or Spurs being good examples

[Charly]

Its hard to put chances away if you cant speak english.

I dont think I have seen a player that awkward suddenly become a top player. Klopp may be able to get the best out of him, but I dont think he has the skill to suddenly become amazing. The way we play he needs to be able to control the ball in tight situations

[Corndog]

Henderson was not great technically when he joined Liverpool, he was night and day better but it took 3-4 years.

Lewandowski improved a huge amount technically from his first season or two at dortmund. At the time he was good but a million miles away from what he would later become. He had a better technical base than Nunez though but not by a huge amount.

I think he can improve a lot but there’s no excuses, he should know basic English by now and I’d bet it’s nothing to do with him ‘being bad at languages’ and everything to do with all the Spanish speakers he is surrounded by. He just needs to be forced to only speak English a no he’ll be there in 3 months.

It’s definitely also true that you’d expect a player to be better technically if you’re signing him for 60 odd mil. There’s no doubt the club overpaid for what he currently is.