Why Darwin Nunez Will Silence All His Critics
Liverpool's recent 1-1 draw with Luton grabbed a number of headlines, but the prevailing one centers around a string of missed chances for Darwin Nunez. However, despite the striker's wastefulness in their most recent game, the numbers show he's enjoying an astonishing improvement in front of goal this season.
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00:00 Hi everyone, Adam Cleary, 442 here, yes it's me, I'm back, don't worry about where I've
00:09 been, nowhere exciting.
00:10 Anyway, yes, hello, after a 25 hour return flight and some of the worst turbulence I've
00:20 ever sat through in my entire life, I was finally able to watch some football.
00:24 It was Liverpool vs Luton, you probably saw it too, and despite the fact that Luton scored
00:28 a goal in the early one and Luis Diaz did one of the most remarkably strong, brave,
00:32 courageous things I've ever seen in football, the one thing people seem to be focusing on
00:37 is this guy, Darwin Nunes, or to use his full name, he's crap you see because he missed
00:49 this absolute sitter and while yes of course that is quite bad, I would also like to posit
00:53 the theory that no, he's actually really good, in fact he's this close to being one of the
00:59 best centre forwards in the world, and we can prove it.
01:04 Alright so last season for Darwin Nunes, his first in the Premier League, his first for
01:09 Liverpool, pretty tough one I think we'd all agree, 14 goals in all competitions, not a
01:14 dreadful return but I think the expectation was much higher and that is partly because
01:19 of the reputation he arrived with, yes, and it's also partly because of the price tag
01:24 he had, yes, but mostly the biggest problem he had was Erling Haaland.
01:29 The two big title challenging clubs in England both going out and buying a very unconventional
01:33 for their style of play centre forward and putting them immediately into the first team,
01:38 it was impossible not to draw parallels and that meant that when Haaland hit the ground
01:42 running and started scoring, let's see if I remember, a million goals a week, it meant
01:47 that the comparisons continued and they were very unfavourable for Nunes who was not doing
01:52 that.
01:53 But the thing is, not all transfers work out and even the ones that do very rarely work
01:57 out straight away so it wasn't unreasonable to expect a period of adaptation for Nunes
02:02 in both this league and this country and this team and this system and everything else.
02:07 In fact it's since come out numerous times already this season that Klopp was having
02:10 to do exactly that, sit Nunes down and reassure him that he was here as a long term project,
02:16 that if it wasn't clicking straight away that's fine, that's part of what they expected,
02:20 they had faith in him getting there eventually.
02:22 And if we look at his numbers already this season that is precisely what's happening,
02:26 he's getting to grips with this system, he's getting better at playing the way Jurgen Klopp
02:30 wants and that is delivering much better performances.
02:33 But you are never going to see a better statistical comparison in your life than this one, okay,
02:38 these are Darwin Nunes' defensive stats across the whole of last season in the Premier League
02:43 per 90 minutes.
02:45 Now you might be sitting there thinking, hang on a second Adam, this guy's a centre forward,
02:48 I don't care about his defensive stats, how jet lagged are you?
02:51 But you've got to remember he plays for Jurgen Klopp, counter pressing he's always said is
02:55 the key to getting into this team, if you cannot contribute to that side of the game,
03:00 to winning the ball back in whatever area of the pitch you need to, you don't really
03:04 play.
03:05 So let's just bring up his numbers from this season already and oh my, look who learned
03:09 a life skill.
03:10 It is absolutely night and day, last season Darwin Nunes was one of the most ineffective
03:15 centre forwards at pressing the opposition and this season he is one of the most effective
03:20 centre forwards at pressing the opposition.
03:22 And the thing is, all his other numbers, the ones you actually care about, they are up
03:26 loads and loads and loads as well, he's scoring more goals per 90 minutes, he's getting more
03:29 assists per 90 minutes, he's creating more big chances per 90 minutes, he gets on the
03:34 ball more per 90 minutes, he gets on the ball in the final third more per 90 minutes, he
03:38 gets on the ball in the opposition box more per 90 minutes, he is a far more effective
03:42 player and crucially, he's becoming a better goal scorer.
03:47 And this is the whole reason why I've made this video by the way, because I've seen loads
03:51 of people laughing at him missing that chance for loot and I've seen loads of people saying
03:54 "oh he's good but he can't finish", we even saw Jamie Carragher in the post-match saying
03:58 "look, he's a good finisher but he's never going to be prolific", we know that and that's
04:03 just, I don't think that's true.
04:06 Last season his shot conversion percentage was just a little bit over 12% which is not
04:11 great in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty average for the Premier League and
04:15 this season he's already upped that to over 20% which still isn't in the top top bracket
04:21 but it's really good.
04:22 And if you're somebody who cares about xG, I know not everybody does, but last season
04:25 he felt like a bit of a wasteful finisher and he was underperforming his xG, he got
04:29 his 14 goals off about 18 or 19 xG, whereas this season he scored 6 and his xG is 6, so
04:38 he's taking the kind of chances you expect him to.
04:41 Although that's the thing about him isn't it, it's not even remotely accurate to say
04:45 that he takes the sort of chances you expect him to take, because he will miss those ones
04:50 like against Luton, although that's not included in the data because obviously it was flagged
04:53 offside but if it had been scored they would have gone back and it probably would have
04:55 been onside so it would have counted then, but that's not part of the data, but the xG
04:58 for that is something like 0.8, it's nearly as good as a penalty and he missed that and
05:03 both those goals he got against Newcastle combined were worth an xG of about 3.
05:09 So he will get chances he should never ever be able to take because he's so good, but
05:14 he's still not finishing the really really, not easy, but more comfortable ones.
05:21 And this is why I think Liverpool fans should be so so excited about Darwin Nunes as a footballer,
05:26 because he's still only 24 and yes his numbers are nowhere near the sort of levels you expect
05:31 from an elite centre forward, but every single one of them is tracking in that direction,
05:36 he is moving closer and closer to being that kind of player and I don't actually see any
05:41 reason why he can't be that.
05:43 And you can tell by the way that Klopp absolutely believes he's going to be that kind of player
05:47 as well because we sort of think of Liverpool as this classic 4-3-3 team and we sort of
05:52 feel like they've maybe reverted back to a slightly older system they used to play, but
05:55 if you look at the way they set up now using that box midfield, that needs a player like
06:00 Darwin Nunes at the head of it, not someone like Cody Gakpo.
06:03 Like you've seen it a lot this season, you saw it against Luton, the way they like to
06:06 build up now, Alexis McAllister, he comes across, leaves a bit of room for Trent Alexander-Arnold
06:10 to move into the midfield, the defence shuffle over and you get this 3-3-3, very similar
06:15 to what Arsenal and Manchester City have.
06:17 And it isn't to say that Klopp is trying to copy Pep, they execute this system very
06:20 very differently, but one of the main advantages it gives you is it allows you to have a proper
06:25 goal scoring centre forward.
06:27 Like in previous Liverpool systems, especially with Roberto Firmino, but Gakpo does it really
06:30 well as well, the number 9's job is to drop into the space to allow Salah to get in on
06:34 goals, to allow the other white players to get in on goals and then to sort of have this
06:37 sort of boxed in sort of counter pressing system, but they're moving away from that,
06:41 they want to really overload teams, have loads of attacking threats, so by playing this box
06:46 you've got that stability, but you can still have a dedicated number 9, like Erling Haaland
06:50 does at City, that will score you loads of goals.
06:53 And it has taken time for this to start bearing fruit with Liverpool, they did not adapt to
06:57 it as quickly as Arsenal and City did, but you can see now it is really starting to work.
07:02 Like Nunes and Salah, just neither on the same wavelength last season, two very different
07:06 players trying to do very different things, but now all of Nunes' assists this season
07:10 have been full.
07:11 Anyone, anyone, Mo Salah.
07:13 In fact this was a great stat that was on The Athletic, right now when they are both
07:17 on the pitch together, Nunes and Salah are creating a chance for each other, wait for
07:23 it, every 29 minutes, that is the best ratio between two players in the entire league.
07:30 This is working.
07:31 And just to go off on an entire other tangent here, I do think Joe Gomez starting against
07:35 Luton is an indication that he's finally really confident in the system and happy to just
07:40 settle with it, because Gomez obviously centre back by trade, so when you move into this
07:44 back three, when you've got your little box going, he's a perfect player to be playing
07:48 in that position.
07:49 Robertson, Simicas, they want to be bombing up the left hand side, but Gomez, he's going
07:53 to do that job really, really well.
07:55 So as weird as it sounds, the decision to put Joe Gomez in at left back is actually
08:00 a ringing endorsement of Darwin Nunes up front, because if you're going to play that more
08:04 conventional system where you're going to be having the centre forward dropping off
08:07 and getting your two wide players in on goal like that, then you do want that width.
08:11 But if you've got a reliable goal scoring number nine who's going to be the focal point
08:14 of the attack, then he goes there, so you kind of force these two wide players out a
08:17 little bit more, so you're not worried about getting any width from your full back, so
08:21 you can have Joe Gomez sitting here doing his job, because Darwin Nunes is up there,
08:25 trusted now to do his job.
08:28 But this is the thing about Liverpool and the thing about Klopp, this doesn't mean they're
08:31 going to now rely on him to fire them back into a title challenge, the same way that
08:36 City were relying on Haaland.
08:38 They've got the tools to be far more adaptable and far more flexible and react better to
08:44 the opposition, like yes he'll play up front and be a number nine, but Diaz can do stuff
08:48 up here and Salah's even played through the middle and Gakpo offers you something completely
08:51 different in this area of the pitch.
08:54 I mean as you saw in the Newcastle United game, which I'm still twitching every single
08:58 time I have to talk about, if you leave him on the bench he can come on and make a difference.
09:03 Anyway though to put that in far more poetic terms, are we all enjoying the fact that a
09:07 man named Darwin is having one of the best evolutions in the Premier League this season?
09:12 I'm here all week!
09:13 Anyway yes that's it, that's the video, sorry I was away so long, I was literally having
09:16 the greatest time of my entire life, but genuinely thrilled to be back now talking to you all
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09:24 I'm now very ably assisted by my colleagues Mark White and Adam Monks who are having loads
09:29 more fun and loads more videos going out over the couple of weeks, you do not want to miss
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09:37 buy 442 the magazine! I literally took it away with me on holiday and I can't believe
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09:48 good. Anyway, I'm still very jet lagged and I'm aware I'm rambling, so I'm going to go,
09:53 possibly to sleep, for three days. Goodbye!