Darwin Núñez

[BG1973]

People are over analyzing this lad, ****ing hell he's only been with us two seasons and barely gets a start.

Some people are going to look right cunts in a few years when he becomes the talent we know he is.

Hasn't he started 10/16 in PL?

[Kenneth]

He has a total of 22 appearances this season, 13 from the start.

And last year he started 26 games.

[ronanm]

Time for a plan A

[vlahka]

That was certainly not the prevailing view at the time. Go back to the threads and count the amount of time people were certain there were "world class players" in there. Somewhere. Always somewhere.

Not sure about Karius being called world class, but people were raving about Keith for 2 simple reasons. We tried to get him a season ago and finally got him. And the biggest reason, everyone had a pet name for him, baby keith, wanting to name their children after him. So of course everyone wants him to be good so they didnt call their metaphorical child after a **** player.

If half of Nunez's 400 post hits this season had gone in, everyone would be talking differently.

[Venton]

If half of Nunez's 400 post hits this season had gone in, everyone would be talking differently.

That is absolutely true. I would be praising him to the rafters. Alas...

[vlahka]

Thats the thing.. How many players can you recall who smash that post so often? Hes just been extremely unlucky. Next game hes 100% scoring. You can take that to the bank!

[Exiled_red]

He has got the ability, the problem is composure

[Fivex]

He should definitely stop practicing his ‘so close’ face in the mirror

[Harv]

It’s quite vindicating that you can’t actually counter anything I’ve said

There's no point anymore really.

People made their mind up on him in his first game and its be relentless ever since. Doesn't matter what he does. His every touch needs to be perfect, every shot go in or every run culminate in a goal. If it doesn't we just get "ohh that Darwins a bit ****".

Now he's just plain dumb apparently.

I think you'll find a lot of footballers have the IQ of a plant FWIW. So he's not alone.

Not sure why you're picking out one misjudged run either. The way Salah's been passing the ball the last few weeks nobody would have any idea where its going...but yeah, its all Darwins fault the non-English speaking dumb cunt who cant shoot, pass control the ball or stay onside.

[Harv]

He barely gets a start because he isn't very good. He couldn't get his head around pressing from the front last season and this season it seems he can't get his head around contributing to a team and scoring goals. We're not the only team who have spent big on a striker and it hasn't worked out - United's equivalent is even more mediocre.

Hopefully we can sell him to a Spanish club, he can score his 15 goals a season there from 70 starts and we'll be singing songs about Osimhen.

****ing LOL

[vlahka]

****ing LOL

Its like people make their own fantasies to just not like him. For the premier league stats hes on 4 goals, 5 assists. The only other person above him? Salah, on 11 goals and 7 assists. Everyone else is below them. Hes our second best player. And hes hit the post about 400 times more than Salah. All this gakpo love? Hes on 2 goals with 1 game less than nunez.

[Slinky Skills]

There's no point anymore really.



People made their mind up on him in his first game and its be relentless ever since. Doesn't matter what he does. His every touch needs to be perfect, every shot go in or every run culminate in a goal. If it doesn't we just get "ohh that Darwins a bit ****".



Now he's just plain dumb apparently.



I think you'll find a lot of footballers have the IQ of a plant FWIW. So he's not alone.



Not sure why you're picking out one misjudged run either. The way Salah's been passing the ball the last few weeks nobody would have any idea where its going...but yeah, its all Darwins fault the non-English speaking dumb cunt who cant shoot, pass control the ball or stay onside.

[Craig_H]

There's no point anymore really.

People made their mind up on him in his first game and its be relentless ever since. Doesn't matter what he does. His every touch needs to be perfect, every shot go in or every run culminate in a goal. If it doesn't we just get "ohh that Darwins a bit ****".

Now he's just plain dumb apparently.

I think you'll find a lot of footballers have the IQ of a plant FWIW. So he's not alone.

Not sure why you're picking out one misjudged run either. The way Salah's been passing the ball the last few weeks nobody would have any idea where its going...but yeah, its all Darwins fault the non-English speaking dumb cunt who cant shoot, pass control the ball or stay onside.

1) I hadn’t made up my mind in his first game. I probably haven’t completely still. But we can only go by what we see and you’re ignoring the evidence that’s right in front of you.

2) No, every touch doesn’t need to be perfect and every shot doesn’t need to go in. That’s just silly, hyperbolic and dissolves any credibility in your argument. It’s strawman. There’s a middle ground between “every shot goes in” and 2 goals in 13 PL games. It’s not an unreasonable ask for a forward to be in that middle ground somewhere.

3) the context of the “dumb” comments is purely relating to footballing intelligence, nothing to do with “IQ”. I’m fairly sure you know that.


4) I picked out that run because I remembered it. We can discuss the kicking the ball away, getting booked and immediately sarcastically clapping the officials, risking a sending off - if you prefer?

5) One can make valid criticisms of Salah too. He probably gets less stick than Darwin, yes. Perhaps due to the 11 goals 7 assists in the league from 17 games and what he’s done since he joined us? I’d say that’s what we call “credit in the bank”.

If Darwin had put up those numbers, had 6 years of brilliant numbers for us and didn’t unfortunately have a raft of good chances missed, he’d probably get the same kind of slack when he doesn’t have a great game.

We can debate it all day but the facts are there, we can all see the numbers, the missed/converted chances ratio and the performances. Nobody wants him to fail. That being said, the comment, criticism, praise and assessment of him is based on what he actually does on the pitch.

[Craig_H]

Its like people make their own fantasies to just not like him. For the premier league stats hes on 4 goals, 5 assists. The only other person above him? Salah, on 11 goals and 7 assists. Everyone else is below them. Hes our second best player. And hes hit the post about 400 times more than Salah. All this gakpo love? Hes on 2 goals with 1 game less than nunez.

The volume of missed chances doesn’t help Nunez. Yes he has numbers better than most others. It could be argued that those numbers should be better given the chances that he’s had. He’s also capable, he has produced brilliance but he’s also failed to convert too many sitters as well. We can’t ignore that.

He can’t be a bad finisher, you don’t score 30 odd goals in a season by being a bad finisher. But for us, he hasn’t demonstrated that he’s a good finisher and the leeway we have for that is very finite.

I’d be confident that both Gakpo and Jota would have more goals if they’d had the same chances that he has had.

I’d also say that criticism of Nunez doesn’t mean the others have been brilliant either. Unfortunately though, whataboutery doesn’t make the missed chances he’s had any better.

[Kenneth]

There's no point anymore really.

People made their mind up on him in his first game and its be relentless ever since. Doesn't matter what he does. His every touch needs to be perfect, every shot go in or every run culminate in a goal. If it doesn't we just get "ohh that Darwins a bit ****".

That’s quite true, or very early at least. I recall you celebrating him headbutting that defender in his home debut. Others were pretty sure that he wasn’t the kind of striker that the team needed and assumed his arrival would be paired with a significant change in playing style or formation, which brought some skepticism with that. We didn’t really adapt to his style so that feeling of ‘why did you choose him?’ prevails.

Maybe there is too much focus on his specific failings that implies it’s his fault, but he didn’t buy himself, the club decided (erroneously I would say) that he was the player we needed and it isn’t his fault that he isn’t. But equally, when someone says that he isn’t good enough, it isn’t some personal affront that needs defending with hyperbole about how he’ll be amazing next week, or the week after, or maybe the week after that. The weekly criticism is born of frustration at what’s he’s able to do on the pitch, but I’m not really sure where the impassioned defence is coming from. We’ve seen lots of players come and be disappointing to varying degrees but they didn’t get the kind of blind worship that Nunez does.

I think the idea that he’s not the striker we need is still supported by the evidence on the pitch, the idea that he’s a worldie in waiting still looks like wishful thinking.