Darwin Núñez is still yet to fulfil expectations at Liverpool. However, Jürgen Klopp’s latest arrivals could be about to unleash the best of the Uruguayan.
Darwin Núñez will be the first to admit things haven’t quite gone according to plan for him at Liverpool in his first season. The Uruguayan has shown a lot of promise but he hasn’t quite got going just yet in Jürgen Klopp’s team.
But it was always going to take time. Liverpool signed Núñez for the long-term, and with the forward, signed for an initial $82m (£64m/€75m), having never played in England and still learning the language, his first season was always going to throw up challenges and hurdles.
Not every forward will explode like Erling Haaland. Even Liverpool’s legend and Núñez’s compatriot, Luis Suárez, took a couple of seasons before he really started to score the goals for Liverpool. One of the best forwards in the world at the moment, Victor Osimhen, is another example who scored just 10 goals in his first season at Napoli.
In this context, Núñez’s 15 goals altogether is not a bad return for the Uruguayan forward, especially with four assists as well. But understandably he will want to improve on those numbers even more next season.
And he’s got the precedence to go on and do exactly that. Núñez has a habit of needing to settle and adjust before he really gets going.
He was the same in his first season at Benfica, and at UD Almería as well in Spain. But speaking to Liverpool.com last season his former coach at Almería, David Badia, explained why Núñez never gave up and persisted in order to eventually start scoring goals on a regular basis for the Spanish club.
“He’s open to listening, he’s open to working and the coaches love players like that,” said Badia. “Ones that you know are listening when you are speaking and they are not thinking that they know everything.
“He is also a player that is always trying to improve himself. At Almería, he was asking what is the best way to do something better in training every day, and then, of course, when he was missing in some actions in the training, he didn’t like it, and he tried to improve, and he tried to be better every day.”
That will put him in good stead for next season. Another will be the arrival of Dominik Szoboszlai. The Hungarian, with the addition of Trent Alexander-Arnold on Liverpool’s right side, could be about to unleash the best of Núñez next season.
Szoboszlai is renowned for his creativity and has formed partnerships with similar players to Núñez in the past. At Salzburg, he was part of a terrifying duo alongside Erling Haaland and then Patson Daka with whom he combined a total of 12 times. At RB Leipzig Szoboszlai played a key role in providing assists for Christopher Nkunku and Andre Silva.
Meanwhile, for the Hungarian national team, he combined for goals the most often with Hungary’s number nine, Ádám Szalai, who was also a tall and aerially powerful forward until his retirement earlier this year.
Núñez was unfairly compared to Haaland when the duo arrived in England for big money last summer, but there are comparisons to be made. Both are number nines that relish going into the spaces behind, which Szoboszlai is able to pick out. Szoboszlai’s relationship with Haaland (and the others) proves that he relishes having that kind of willing goalscorer in front of him.
Szoboszlai’s crossing ability, set-piece specialty and his vision from open space to produce defense-splitting passes give him the potential to help someone like Núñez thrive, and the Hungarian might just unlock the best of Liverpool’s most expensive signing from last summer next season.
