Topic: Darwin Núñez (Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro)

[RedG13]

Of course it's an outlier. He's doubled his xG. So it absolutely hasn't been par for the course. Re Nunez, I just don't buy the idea that one season is an outlier but the others are 'him'. The reality is that players underperform and over perform their xG in different seasons but it mostly reverts to the mean. So it's best to take the largest sample size possible as representative. And if his one season of overperforming his xG is enough to cause him to be basically hitting his xG over his career guess what, he's not undershooting his xG by very much. And of course, even if you think he's mostly going to shoot under his xG you still need to accept natural variance and luck - see the number of times he's hit the woodwork this season and reckon with the possibility that he might overperform in future seasons, as he over performed in a past season.

People just need to stop under emphasising the ability to get high value shots and over emphasising finishing ability and we'll all be a lot closer to agreement. I doubt we'll agree in every particular but at least we won't have insane ideas about Nunez being rubbish in the face of actual production, which is genuinely really good even with his bad (and unlucky) finishing.

Yea it much more important to get a lot of good shots then getting finish overperformaces you need years of finishing data for that. Jota Career G-npXG is +2.3 in 6 seasons of the data with a shot distance of 13.2 Nunez is -7.2 with 15.3 shot distance in 5 seasons with a career npxg of .6 per 90. Jota np Xg is .47.
Like Nunez even with that bad of finishing is still putting up insane numbers.  Nunez also like makes Liverpool attack get even better shots for everybody irc it was like 2 XG a game wo him playing and like over 2.5 xg with him.

[Pistolero]

I know footy is just stats stats stats these days but does anyone else just miss when we'd sit in the pub with a pint arguing who was quicker.

Is stat chat even a thing in real life?....I know if we were in The Church after the game and one of the lads started farting out Career G-npXG is +2.3 in 6 seasons of the data with a shot distance of 13.2...they'd be beermatted and told to get the fkn ale in ...

[PEG2K]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

[farawayred]

I know footy is just stats stats stats these days but does anyone else just miss when we'd sit in the pub with a pint arguing who was quicker.

There is no argument who is the fastest... to gulp the pint, that is. The Fox. Bill "The Fox" Foster, drinking beer faster tha it falls on the ground.

https://i.imgur.com/7jhLmMm.mp4

[JasonF]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

Scott McTominay has better shooting accuracy (and an almost identical shot conversion rate) than Erling Haaland. Does that make him a better striker? No, obviously not, because shot volume is also a factor.

[PEG2K]

Scott McTominay has better shooting accuracy (and an almost identical shot conversion rate) than Erling Haaland. Does that make him a better striker? No, obviously not, because shot volume is also a factor.

Let's just assume Scott plays CF for the sake of your point. How does that contradict mine though? The parts in bold are shooting stats. My point is about watching with our eyes. Surely Haaland is the better striker/finisher. If anything your point actually validates mine.

[Historical Fool]

Think it went back to the shareholders #booFSG

This is not true

[KC7]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

Think Nunez's main issue is he often smashes it when placement is required. He has shown he has the ability to place it (two angled finishes at Newcastle for example), just too often he lacks calm decision making so just wellies it.

Gerd Muller was the placement king. The way he described his thought process of scoring: "must get the ball from A to B" (B being over the line, not even hitting the net a necessity). Simple, but very clinical, almost mathematical. While Muller took a professor type approach Nunez is more Caveman: "must see ball break net".

That chance vs Palace, smashed it straight at the keeper 6 yards out. Placement he has no chance of stopping it.

Shearer got the balance of smashing it and placement right. Owen I thought was always a smart finisher. Loved passing it inside the side netting. Another who had a favoured routine Henry loved that left leaning right foot curling finish into the right side of goal. Rush, Fowler, Jota and co. are more your natural, instinctive finishers.

[johnathank]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

Sometimes it really is that simple.

[Darren G]

Of course it's an outlier. He's doubled his xG. So it absolutely hasn't been par for the course. Re Nunez, I just don't buy the idea that one season is an outlier but the others are 'him'. The reality is that players underperform and over perform their xG in different seasons but it mostly reverts to the mean. So it's best to take the largest sample size possible as representative. And if his one season of overperforming his xG is enough to cause him to be basically hitting his xG over his career guess what, he's not undershooting his xG by very much. And of course, even if you think he's mostly going to shoot under his xG you still need to accept natural variance and luck - see the number of times he's hit the woodwork this season and reckon with the possibility that he might overperform in future seasons, as he over performed in a past season.

People just need to stop under emphasising the ability to get high value shots and over emphasizing finishing ability and we'll all be a lot closer to agreement. I doubt we'll agree in every particular but at least we won't have insane ideas about Nunez being rubbish in the face of actual production, which is genuinely really good even with his bad (and unlucky) finishing.

So Jota being over his xG this season is definitely an outlier despite him doing very similar before, but the season that Nunez outperformed his xG wasn't, despite that only happening for one season in the past five?  I'm not getting into the bulk of the other stuff you wrote as it largely consists of intangibles that can't be properly measured such as 'luck'.

And what is this?: " his one season of overperforming his xG is enough to cause him to be basically hitting his xG over his career guess what, he's not undershooting his xG by very much".
 So, it's ok that he's underperforms his xG almost every season (4 out of the past five) because he had one really good season, so it all evens out? That's not how it works. 

Incidentally, do you have somewhere that I can see the stats for "high value shots"? All I am able to find is total shots on goal. As far as that goes, Nunez has the highest amount in the league with 104 shots, but only has 11 goals, which other players in the league have managed with around 40 shots on goal.  This appears to indicate that finishing ability is more of a factor than you give it credit for.  I am not suggesting that total shots aren't a factor at all, but of the top ten scorers in the league eight of them are above their xG (Salah is slightly below his as is Haaland for the first time ever) and every one of them has outperformed their xG for multiple seasons.  That indicates that finishing ability is not overemphasized as you claim.

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

...and of course there's that too. 

[collytum]

Some amount of excuses used to support Nunez performances lately. It should be fairly simple, he is a striker and is measured on goals and he doesn't get many. If he wasnt getting good supply it would be understandable but he misses big chances on a regular basis. Not even close to being good enough for liverpool

[Knight]

So Jota being over his xG this season is definitely an outlier despite him doing very similar before, but the season that Nunez outperformed his xG wasn't, despite that only happening for one season in the past five?  I'm not getting into the bulk of the other stuff you wrote as it largely consists of intangibles that can't be properly measured such as 'luck'.

And what is this?: " his one season of overperforming his xG is enough to cause him to be basically hitting his xG over his career guess what, he's not undershooting his xG by very much".
 So, it's ok that he's underperforms his xG almost every season (4 out of the past five) because he had one really good season, so it all evens out? That's not how it works. 

Incidentally, do you have somewhere that I can see the stats for "high value shots"? All I am able to find is total shots on goal. As far as that goes, Nunez has the highest amount in the league with 104 shots, but only has 11 goals, which other players in the league have managed with around 40 shots on goal.  This appears to indicate that finishing ability is more of a factor than you give it credit for.  I am not suggesting that total shots aren't a factor at all, but of the top ten scorers in the league eight of them are above their xG (Salah is slightly below his as is Haaland for the first time ever) and every one of them has outperformed their xG for multiple seasons.  That indicates that finishing ability is not overemphasized as you claim.

...and of course there's that too. 

Re Jota - why are you still saying this? He's doubled his xG this season. No one does that once you get to a decent sample size. It's not that being over his xG is an outlier (he's been over and under for us), it's being double his xG which is the outlier. Jota's output, over a large enough sample size, will revert towards the mean. That's just xG being xG. Some players will marginally outperform it (Jota for us and perhaps over his career) and there will be some outliers who overperform it significantly. But plenty of great goal scorers will basically hit their xG over a large enough sample size.  Nunez's numbers, like everyone elses, will tend towards the mean. It's no surprise that his have done that over a large enough sample size. I'm not saying his season overshooting his xG is representative. I'm saying his performance over his career is representative. You're saying that we can ignore a part of the data sample as an anomaly whilst focussing on other parts of the data sample. But that's not how data works. And of course if you want to get into finishing skill etc you're going to have to explain how Nunez over performed that season in Portugal - presumably you think it was luck? That is, the intangibles that you're deriding me for relying on. In reality variance really matters in goal scoring, chances which 'should' be taken are actually less likely to be taken than we think and the biggest predictor of high scoring output is high value shot output.

Nunez takes lots of high value shots because per 90 his xG is high and per 90 his shot numbers are high. He's less efficient with the shots he does take than Jota (who is unbelievably good at shot selection, I can't recall seeing him shoot from outside the box, like ever) but he's getting lots of good chances to score goals. He absolutely needs to score more of them in the future but it's not going to change his numbers that much even if he does. His goals per 90 numbers are already really good. This has been said a million times by multiple posters in this thread and has fallen on deaf ears (and hasn't stopped silly comments like the one from collytum above) but anyway, there it is.

As for the comments about finishing - who's arguing Nunez is a better goalscorer than Jota? That's not the conversation being had in comparing them.

[jepovic]

I would be shocked if he's sold this summer anyway. He's got bags of potential, and maybe a new manager will help him.
Also, I dont think he will hit the post 11 times or whatever one more season

Salah seems to be on his way out and lots of rumours around Diaz, and I dont think we want too much change.

[jepovic]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

Yeah I agree completely. But Nunez also has obvious advantages over Jota, like being way stronger and faster.

I have found myself dreaming of a Frankenstein striker based off our current strikers, with Nunez physique, Diaz dribbling and Jota's finishing. That would be one hell of a player

[lionel_messias]

Maybe we need to find him a strike partner?

Either that or we better hope Arne Slot is absolutely ELITE at refining and developing forwards.

That miss against Everton is haunting me, over and over again.

[Shankly998]

Nunez needs a sports psychologist to help him out. There's no way Klopp and the coaching team wouldn't be telling him to take a deep. breath and place it in the corner rather than blasting it but he's not doing it for whatever reason clearly he can finish see that lovely chip he scored earlier this season it's just a mental block where he gets a chance seemingly panics and just blasts it often just straight at the keeper. It's not like he isn't hitting the target he just needs to be a bit more composed. Let's see if he can get over this. His first touch unfortunately isn't going to get noticeably better at his age I've seen players finishing improve but not their first touch usually you see this in physically dominant players who bully the opposition and don't need to work on their ball control as much to generate chances.

[Zlen]

Next season will be interesting. Obviously he is staying, it would be incredibly surprising if we looked to move him on this summer. But even though he certainly has another season, in reality the time he has to impress will be much, much shorter. New manager will need to nail down a consistent source of goals - fast. Darwin will have a major fight on his hands to secure a place and hold it, even without us buying a new striker. I wish him all the best, it would be great to see him become more rutless in front of the goal, but it won't be easy and there definitely won't be as much patience for him next time around.

[Dave D]

I just can't see him being here next season now that the laptop boys have started leaking to their mates in the press to undermine Jürgen. Those few words by Paul Joyce a few days ago were pretty damning. The only person that wanted you at the club is leaving in a few weeks. Having said that, they probably have a minimum figure that they want to sell him for. If they don't reach it, he'll stay.

[Knight]

I just can't see him being here next season now that the laptop boys have started leaking to their mates in the press to undermine Jürgen. Those few words by Paul Joyce a few days ago were pretty damning. The only person that wanted you at the club is leaving in a few weeks. Having said that, they probably have a minimum figure that they want to sell him for. If they don't reach it, he'll stay.

Those leaks, if leaks is what they are, were ages ago. The journalists were just repeating stuff they’d already written. But also, data nerds are unlikely to look at his performances for us and think, ‘yeah we should get rid’. He’ll be undervalued by the market (owing to a lack of headline goal numbers) and also be quite hard to replace - owing to actually really quite good production per 90. Plus there’s the hope that his underperformance on xG will revert to the mean (which is what the data nerds will expect) and he’ll be even more productive in the future.

[deano2727]

If we managed to get a decent offer for him, we'd be mad not to consider it.

I just don't see it being a case of third season lucky with him. We need a CF we can rely on, particularly now Mo's goals have dried up and he looks to be off.

[killer-heels]

Maybe we need to find him a strike partner?

Either that or we better hope Arne Slot is absolutely ELITE at refining and developing forwards.

That miss against Everton is haunting me, over and over again.

I think that chance will hang over him for a long, long time unfortunately. All the excuses can be made but it was a huge chance where he had time and a massive area of the goal to hit, on his strongest foot and really close to the goal. It absolutely has to be a goal.

For the fan base that will be one they remember for a long time.

[Dave D]

Those leaks, if leaks is what they are, were ages ago. The journalists were just repeating stuff they’d already written. But also, data nerds are unlikely to look at his performances for us and think, ‘yeah we should get rid’. He’ll be undervalued by the market (owing to a lack of headline goal numbers) and also be quite hard to replace - owing to actually really quite good production per 90. Plus there’s the hope that his underperformance on xG will revert to the mean (which is what the data nerds will expect) and he’ll be even more productive in the future.

Come on, we all know how this works by now. Joyce and Bascombe putting out stories about Nunez and Klopp at the same time means only one thing.

I have no doubt the data team already have his replacement lined up if they're getting their mates in the press to run hit pieces on him.

[Spezialo]

I know footy is just stats stats stats these days but does anyone else just miss when we'd sit in the pub with a pint arguing who was quicker.

Yeah I do. Think all this xG rubbish should be binned - my personal view that is.

[Knight]

Come on, we all know how this works by now. Joyce and Bascombe putting out stories about Nunez and Klopp at the same time means only one thing.

I have no doubt the data team already have his replacement lined up if they're getting their mates in the press to run hit pieces on him.

But if that’s what happened it happened last season. It tells us nothing about what is happening right now.

[CowboyKangaroo]

So ignore almost all of what I actually wrote and switch to xG per 90 now? And when the fuck did the conversation have ANYTHING to do with injury records? At no point has the conversation been about that and/or who should be starting. I've seen people go down these wormholes with you before, with FSG related stuff.  You're not interested in finding an objective truth, just "winning the internet".  You cherry-pick stats such as only picking the Premier League players in your 'minutes per game' argument that support your narrative and simply ignore any point that you can't refute and instead simply move on to a fresh set of stats. I'm done.

There isn't a remotely coherent argument to be made that p90 is not the best way to look at any stat. It has its limitations (sub effects and similar), but is vastly superior to any other way to presenting the data. To refuse to see that is myopic at best, but pure foolishness most of the time. It is not cherry picking, it is basic data literacy.

It would seem bizarre to sell him now we've put the data nerds in charge. If he were to be put up for sale (particularly for less than we bought him), I'm not sure our club's email system would be capable of withstanding the number of inquiries we would have. It is fair to say there is a disconnect between how the world's recruitment analysts see him and members of our own fan base. The question you should ask yourself is why do you see it so differently to those paid to see the value of players? If your position is that Edwards, and every statistical analyst in the world are all chancers who don't understand football, fair enough. That is at least a consistent position, but you must be terrified of what is to come.

[Tiz Lad]

If we managed to get a decent offer for him, we'd be mad not to consider it.

I just don't see it being a case of third season lucky with him. We need a CF we can rely on, particularly now Mo's goals have dried up and he looks to be off.

Thing is we're unlikely to get a decent offer for him. Pretty certain we're already in for £75m as some of the instalments have been hit

Not many leagues or teams would consider that type of fee for him

[jepovic]

I havent seen any realistically attainable 9s that would be better than Nunez.
The fact that people seriously mention Gyökeres speaks volumes for the market and how underrated Nunez has become.

[Sheer Magnetism]

Of course it's an outlier. He's doubled his xG. So it absolutely hasn't been par for the course. Re Nunez, I just don't buy the idea that one season is an outlier but the others are 'him'. The reality is that players underperform and over perform their xG in different seasons but it mostly reverts to the mean.

It mostly reverts to the mean. So, you're acknowledging that these are human beings and not coins and that sometimes it doesn't. Would it be fair to assume the likeliest cases for that would be players with less composure who blast the ball rather than place it, and have underperformed their xG almost every season in their career? Put aside your personal feelings Knight, would that be a logical assumption or not?

It would seem bizarre to sell him now we've put the data nerds in charge. If he were to be put up for sale (particularly for less than we bought him), I'm not sure our club's email system would be capable of withstanding the number of inquiries we would have. It is fair to say there is a disconnect between how the world's recruitment analysts see him and members of our own fan base. The question you should ask yourself is why do you see it so differently to those paid to see the value of players?

This might be my favourite ever post on here. Someone makes up a hypothetical scenario in their head with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever and tries to use it as a slam dunk in an argument.

Hey, here's a question: if the stats people love Nunez so much, why were the Mancs the only team we were bidding against two years ago? Might it be because his signing had nothing to do with stats and everything to do with Klopp pushing for him ahead of Nkunku, the statisticians' actual choice?

[thaddeus]

He's in a patch of poor form but it's still a bit mad that people are talking about selling him.

Like all of our forwards he'd benefit hugely from us getting the ball forward a bit quicker.  It feels like we've been too risk averse in our possession since the FA Cup defeat.

[Buster Gonad]

It mostly reverts to the mean. So, you're acknowledging that these are human beings and not coins and that sometimes it doesn't. Would it be fair to assume the likeliest cases for that would be players with less composure who blast the ball rather than place it, and have underperformed their xG almost every season in their career? Put aside your personal feelings Knight, would that be a logical assumption or not?This might be my favourite ever post on here. Someone makes up a hypothetical scenario in their head with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever and tries to use it as a slam dunk in an argument.

Hey, here's a question: if the stats people love Nunez so much, why were the Mancs the only team we were bidding against two years ago? Might it be because his signing had nothing to do with stats and everything to do with Klopp pushing for him ahead of Nkunku, the statisticians' actual choice?

That article is unbelievable tripe. Suggesting Nunez just played well against Liverpool whilst Nkunku had come off an unbelievable  season ( they both had) is misleading enough.
But telling the lie that he missed a string of chances in the Merseyside Derby is what renders it utter garbage. Unless a string equals one

[Wool]

As frustrated as I’ve been with him recently, he has 3700 minutes in the league which is about 41 games and he has 20 goals. That’s a good return. The frustration is it should be so much more and that’s what leads to the current debate. I have my frustrations, and I especially have my frustration with folks suggesting finishing is just luck and no skill, but a lot of the criticism is driven by emotion I think in regards to how this season has ended. There’s an elite striker in there where the hypothetical output becomes his actual output so I do think he’s being written off prematurely.

[Eeyore]

The problem with Jota and Nunez regardless of how xG-savvy you can be is that you can see with your fucking eyes who has better technique and who can strike a ball more cleanly therefore is the far better finisher lol.

Did you have your eyes shut when Jota went 32 games without scoring?

Ironically one of Nunez's issues this season has been hitting the ball too cleanly. If you ask me who can hit the ball with more power then I would say Nunez. If you want an example then Nunez's ridiculous strike away at Bournemouth is a good one.

For me Jota is very good at getting shots on target and is also a master of deceiving a keeper with a scuffed shot.

[Eeyore]

I think that chance will hang over him for a long, long time unfortunately. All the excuses can be made but it was a huge chance where he had time and a massive area of the goal to hit, on his strongest foot and really close to the goal. It absolutely has to be a goal.

For the fan base that will be one they remember for a long time.

That chance was rated at 0.4xG. So a forward is on average likely to miss it 1.5 times more often than score it. That is why saying he has to score it is nonsense.

[PhilV]

Maybe we need to find him a strike partner?

This for me seems key.

When he had a good run with Mo he was either assisting Mo, or Mo him, I think this was before AFCON (please someone correct me if I am wrong)

I think a strike partner who is also fit often would be ideal, Jota would be the dream but he is a bit of an injury concern.

EDIT: Just to be clear I absolutely believe this guy has a high ceiling and selling him now would be a big error.

[Sheer Magnetism]

That article is unbelievable tripe. Suggesting Nunez just played well against Liverpool whilst Nkunku had come off an unbelievable  season ( they both had) is misleading enough.
But telling the lie that he missed a string of chances in the Merseyside Derby is what renders it utter garbage. Unless a string equals one

So, you're suggesting Paul Joyce is making things up?

[Eeyore]

This for me seems key.

When he had a good run with Mo he was either assisting Mo, or Mo him, I think this was before AFCON (please someone correct me if I am wrong)

I think a strike partner who is also fit often would be ideal, Jota would be the dream but he is a bit of an injury concern.

EDIT: Just to be clear I absolutely believe this guy has a high ceiling and selling him now would be a big error.

It was Nunez assisting Salah.

They have combined for 12 goals at Liverpool and Nunez has provided 10 of those assists and Salah only two.

[Buster Gonad]

So, you're suggesting Paul Joyce is making things up?

Did he miss a string of chances?

[Sheer Magnetism]

Did he miss a string of chances?

Does that have anything to do with the stats people wanting Nkunku over Nunez?

[Eeyore]

So, you're suggesting Paul Joyce is making things up?

Joyce is reporting on what he has been told. So whether he lying or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is believing the twat who has leaked information against his own club and own manager.

[y2w902]

When Nunez is not high on confidence and struggling for form he reverts to going for power and just getting it on target.

He absolutely has it in his locker to go for more placed/delicate finishes as we have seen in this season gone as well as previous seasons when his confidence is up.

I do think they have sacrificed working on refining his finishing to improve the rest of his game, pressing, hold up, possession play etc. It's a flat out lie to just say nothing has changed in two seasons due to this recent and horribly timed drop in form.

Next season will be his put up or shut up season, he's close to being a great player for us.