After coming in for plenty of recent criticism, Darwin Núñez rose to the occasion when Liverpool needed him most in their 2-0 win at Brentford. Can the Uruguayan striker push on from here?
A familiar cry rained down from the stands after another missed chance. Darwin Núñez had emerged as a second-half substitute for Liverpool only to be met with inevitable chanting from the Brentford fans of “You’re just a s*** Andy Carroll!”
Because banter points are a greater currency to many than actual currency, it has become a popular slight to aim at Núñez. Carroll was an expensive striker with long hair who didn’t score enough goals for Liverpool considering the outlay and potential he showed at previous club, Newcastle United.
Over a decade later, the long-haired Núñez was signed by Liverpool for a potential club-record fee of up to £85 million in the summer of 2022, fresh off a season in which he scored 34 goals in 41 games in all competitions for Benfica, and 26 in 28 Primeira Liga games.
After two and a half years at Liverpool, he’s only scored five more goals for the Reds than he managed in his final season alone in Lisbon. With 123 games played for Liverpool (73 starts), Núñez has 39 goals.
Heading into last weekend, Núñez only had four goals this season in 26 games (14 starts) and murmurs were getting louder about whether his time at Liverpool might be coming to an end, despite the team sitting top of the Premier League and also first in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Diogo Jota has generally been preferred by Arne Slot at the front of his attack when fit, while even winger Luis Díaz has been selected ahead of him in that role in recent weeks.
However, Slot still backed Núñez prior to the game, and turned to him in the 65th minute at the Gtech Community Stadium as Liverpool struggled to break down a resolute Brentford.
Slot’s side huffed and puffed, entering stoppage time still at 0-0 after failing to score from a remarkable 35 shots to that point. Then Núñez struck, sending the travelling Kop into ecstasy. Trent Alexander-Arnold managed to find the Uruguayan with a low cross at the second time of asking, and Núñez slotted instinctively from close range.
The proverbial ‘limbs’ ensued in the away end and Núñez was suddenly the hero of the hour. After disappointing draws with Manchester United and Nottingham Forest, a win felt important for Liverpool, and thanks to Núñez, they got it.
Such was the glee from the away section that they decided to regale Núñez with their own ironic rendition of “You’re just a s*** Andy Carroll!”
It was appropriate that the game was in London, as like their famous buses, two came along at once for Núñez. Fellow substitutes Federico Chiesa and Harvey Elliott combined before the latter fed Núñez, who cut inside the last defender and slammed in a second to seal the points for his team.
He was serenaded by the warmer chant from the away end of “Núñez! Núñez! Núñez!” at the end of the game, with the 25-year-old giving the impression that a big weight had been lifted from his shoulders. These were his first Premier League goals since early November, and his first away from home in the league since March 2024 when he headed in an equally dramatic 99th-minute winner at Nottingham Forest.
In fact, having also struck two late goals at Newcastle to give Liverpool a win in August 2023, no one in Premier League history has scored more winning goals in second-half stoppage time in away games than Núñez.
He has also now scored the joint-second most 90+ minute goals in the Premier League for Liverpool, level with Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres on five and behind only Sadio Mané (6). It’s an impressive ratio for someone who has only scored 24 goals in the competition.
Since his arrival in 2022, Núñez also has the most goal involvements in the Premier League from the bench with 11 (seven goals, four assists).
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Núñez explained his emotions around his recent difficulties. He said: “I think you have to stay mentally strong, never give up. There are moments that are very difficult for us players – for me, it’s right now, but I never throw the towel in.
“I think the work that I do on the pitch to help the team to defend as well, I think I’ve always done it well. But I haven’t scored goals, and I know people look at that: the striker has to score goals.
“The truth is that I’m going through a rough patch and like I said before, I always stay focused on my job and I’m always going to give everything for Liverpool. It’s really important to keep my head up and to always say, ‘OK, I’ve got to work because I need to improve.’
“And I stay strong with this mentality and with the support of my family and of course the fans, who are incredible… Now I have to keep on working. These two goals will definitely help to build my confidence.”
A lack of confidence has often been cited as the reason for Núñez’s struggles in England. Despite arriving off the back of a season in which he boasted a shot conversion rate of 30.6% for Benfica in the Primeira Liga, he found finishing a lot harder at his new club.
In his debut campaign, Núñez only scored from 12.7% of his shots in all competitions, while that went down to 11.0% last season, and has only crept up to 11.8% this season after his two goals at Brentford.
By comparison, every other Liverpool forward to play at least 200 minutes this season has at least a 19.4% shot conversion rate, though it should be mentioned that his rate rises to 16.0% when just taking into account Premier League games.
As you can see from his xG map for Liverpool below, Núñez has scored his 39 goals from almost 51 xG. If he’d even come close to matching his xG then you’d fancy public opinion on him would be significantly different.
Núñez’s goal return hasn’t been terrible, though. He scored 15 goals in all competitions in his first campaign at Liverpool, and a further 18 goals along with 13 assists in 2023-24. The criticism came because it felt like he should be scoring more considering the chances he was getting, as his higher xG suggests. However, some did give Núñez the benefit of the doubt that he would eventually rediscover his scoring form from Portugal because he was forever getting chances.
No player in the Premier League had as many as his 4.5 shots per 90 minutes (minimum 1,000 minutes played) in 2022-23, which was the case again last season as he upped his shot rate to 4.8 per 90. That sheer volume of shots meant that even with a poor conversion rate, Núñez was still finding the net relatively regularly. If he could improve his finishing, the sky could be the limit.
However, what few people saw coming was that Núñez’s shot volume would go down before his conversion rate went up. In Jürgen Klopp’s system, he had chances galore. In Arne Slot’s setup, though, the Uruguayan simply isn’t as involved. He’s only had 2.9 shots per 90 in the Premier League this season, with 29 players (min. 500 minutes) averaging more, including four of his Liverpool teammates (Díaz, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and Jota).
It’s not that he’s turning into a more creative player either. Having created 1.2 chances per 90 for Liverpool in 2022-23, that went up to 1.7 per 90 last season as his on-pitch relationship with Salah began to thrive. However, in Slot’s team, his productivity has gone down to 0.7 chances created per 90.
In terms of attacking sequence involvements, he has the lowest per 90 of any of Liverpool’s forwards to have played at least 360 minutes in all competitions (5.1).
Slot has continued to defend the player, though, insisting he has an “impact”. In mid-December, the Liverpool boss said of his striker: “If you only look at goals, he hasn’t scored the amount of goals that he wants to score, or we want a number nine to score, but he does have impact in his work rate. He’s part of a team that scores a lot of goals and is winning a lot.
“Of course, as a number nine you want to score more goals and that’s definitely what he wants as well. But I’m not only judging Mohamed Salah on his goals and Darwin on his goals – I also judge them on their work rate and what they bring to the team.”
And when you look at some of his other numbers, you can see what Slot means. One area Núñez has improved under the Dutchman is in his work off the ball.
In the Premier League this season, Núñez is averaging 1.9 tackles per 90 having not averaged more than 1.0 per 90 in his last two seasons, while he’s winning possession 3.2 times per 90, up from a high at Liverpool of 2.5 last season.
He is also showing up in terms of pressures. His 35.1 pressures per 90 is comfortably his highest for the club, as are his distance closed from pressures (338.5 metres per 90) and pressures resulting in a turnover per 90 (5.0).
He is making the most tackles and pressures resulting in a turnover per 90 of any Liverpool forward, while only Jota (41.8) has more pressures per 90 and distance closed from pressures (390.0m).
As you can see from his heat maps below comparing last season to this, Núñez is having more involvement in deeper areas rather than just staying up top and waiting for his chances, still favouring the left side slightly but also having more of his touches inside his own half.
That said, he is making fewer touches overall. Núñez averaged around 36.8 touches per 90 in the Premier League under Klopp, but is having only 30.2 this season.
Slot doubled down on his praise for the player after Saturday’s win, saying at his press conference: “[A reporter] asked me similar things before the game about Darwin and I didn’t agree then that he’s not having a good season. I think he’s having a good season, where he scores goals, he works very hard for the team, he assists. But he’s in competition with a lot of good players, so that’s why he’s not every single game on the pitch.
“But I’m very happy with him – not only because he scored today two goals but that, of course, helps – but I’m very happy with the other performances he put in for us as well.”
It would be very kneejerk to suggest that Núñez has silenced his critics. He still has just six goals in 27 games this season, and as the Newcastle game last season showed, scoring two late goals is not necessarily a sign that things have clicked for him. He could just as easily start against Lille in the Champions League on Tuesday and miss 10 chances.
But going into Saturday’s game, the doubts were getting so loud that it was feeling a near certainty that Liverpool and Núñez would part ways at the end of this season. That could still end up being the case, but this may also be the catalyst for the player showing he still has a big part to play in the club’s future hunt for trophies this season and beyond.
He might not start every game, but with Jota struggling to stay fit and plenty of games to come this season, Núñez can still play a decisive role as Liverpool try to add to the club’s already impressive silverware collection.
It’s notable that of the 14 games Núñez has started this season, Liverpool have won 12, drawn two and lost none (85.7% win percentage), averaging 2.5 goals a game, 0.2 more than the 18 games when he hasn’t started (2.3), of which they’ve won 13, drawn three and lost two (72.2% win percentage). That’s not a vast difference, but it shows that not only do Liverpool not generally do worse when he starts, they are actually marginally more efficient.
Brentford was one good ending to a game, and Núñez has plenty still to do to – as his former manager would have said – turn doubters into believers, but it’s a start.
Incidentally, if anyone was wondering, Andy Carroll has scored seven goals 11 games for Bordeaux in the Championnat National 2 this season.
Whether he can push on from here remains to be seen, but if Núñez can find a hot run of form for Liverpool, opposition fans might have to concede that he’s actually a quite decent Andy Carroll.
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