Topic: Darwin Núñez (Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro)

[Chakan]

Don't understand taking him off to be honest, just let him finish out the game.

[plura]

Obviously want him to do well, just not impressed with him.

Is that your take from him tonight? Disregard what he cost, his previous performances even and can you say that tonight he wasn’t impressive? Such a lethal player with his movement, and yeah we need the finishing to complement those runs.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Obviously want him to do well, just not impressed with him.

Yes you've made it patently obvious from before we signed him.

I thought he was class tonight. Great movements, got his shots away and on target, held the ball up well, and particularly in the second half, really contributed to the build up

[groove]

It's not 'very' skill based though. It is skill based sure. But shot location and volume matters way more than 'finishing ability' or 'composure' or whatever.

I agree they matter more, but at the elite level (City, Liverpool, Bayern, Barca) you want both. I think we could be looking at a 20-30% better xG to goal conversion from Haaland. That's not an insignificant skill gap.

[Fromola]

It's not 'very' skill based though. It is skill based sure. But shot location and volume matters way more than 'finishing ability' or 'composure' or whatever.

Look at Andy Cole as an example. Missed stacks of chances every game but always had a good scoring record because his movement was flawless. Cavani similar, or latter day Ronaldo.

He's clearly a lot more comfortable in this formation and at the fulcrum of the attack.

[frag]

Not sure why we’re taking him off? Unless he’s starting at Arsenal with Jota.

[Funky_Gibbons]

Very odd to say you’re not impressed with that performance, him and Diaz were the pick of the front four.

[Eeyore]

He is boss.

[seal75]

Good performance tonight apart from his finishing. Attacking runs behind were good as you should expect from that kind of striker.

[Chakan]

Played very well, definitely got a bit of Suarez about him when he first arrived, but definitely one of his better games.

[Schmidt]

He didn't lack composure last season, I can see how he might not be totally comfortable out there for us yet and how it might affect his finishing, he just needs time and minutes. I think we'll see him get the CL starts going forwards and he'll start to settle a bit.

[Andar]

You can see how he probably looked to Cavani and his movement as a young lad. Very similar in his movement patterns.

[DonkeyWan]

 Difference tonight was the pressing from the front three, which was excellent. Nunez played his part, but was also top class in his runs and his hold up play. His passing isn't great and he needs to sharpen his finishes, but you can see what potential he has.

[newterp]

Keeper made some top saves - or we are talking about Darwin's hat trick

[stoa]

Don't understand taking him off to be honest, just let him finish out the game.

Could have been to give him a good ovation and the Kop obliged. I love it. You can tell he's trying hard to make something happen, but it's just not coming off at the moment...

[Knight]

I agree they matter more, but at the elite level (City, Liverpool, Bayern, Barca) you want both. I think we could be looking at a 20-30% better xG to goal conversion from Haaland. That's not an insignificant skill gap.

Meh. Lets wait till we've had a big enough sample size to start making claims like that. Unless the 20-30% is something that holds across their careers so far? Having said that, we should all know Haaland is currently better and not be asking Nunez to be as good. The press and media might have put them side by side but one is a freakish monster of a footballer and one is a very good, but still raw, young striker.

[BER]

He's got a pulse at least. Not seen any real quality at all yet though besides being great at thwacking it on target at the keeper.

[Samie]

He's got a pulse at least. Not seen any real quality at all yet though besides being great at thwacking it on target at the keeper.

His movement is elite and he's seriously quick once he get's going.

[Angelius]

Difference tonight was the pressing from the front three, which was excellent. Nunez played his part, but was also top class in his runs and his hold up play. His passing isn't great and he needs to sharpen his finishes, but you can see what potential he has.

Exactly this - he offers the channel run option every time that allows us to play and press high. He gets his shot off early and, eventually, it'll find the back of the net rather than the keeper. The improvement in finishing will come with time.

As he plays more, his hold up play (which is already good) and passing (which is still a bit hit and miss) should also improve. He's still completely not on the same wavelength as the other attackers but you could say that for the entire front four (with good reason).

Thought he had a great game and opens up a lot of options for us - I just wish we had a natural #10 to really unleash the potential of this front four. Jota is great, and his high-pressure is invaluable, but on the ball, it's not completely natural to him. And Firmino's form is now always a bit volatile.

[Clint Eastwood]

Really good game. I wish he'd relax a bit. The goals will come once he stop lashing at everything. His movement is really good though, he will be a big player for us. Tonight was encouraging.

[sminp]

I just wish we had a natural #10 to really unleash the potential of this front four.

Fabio Carvalho says hi 👋

[Skagger]

Darwin was a menace all night, constantly finding dangerous pockets of space, carried the ball very well and showed unselfish graft too, if you come on here and criticise him after that you're clueless

[Red-Soldier]

He's got all the tools, just needs a couple to go in.

[Fromola]

Fabio Carvalho says hi 👋

Elliott as well. Difficult to get either in our usual 433 but an ideal position would be as a 10 in 4231. It clearly works a lot better for Nunez and the fluidity of the attack in general now.

[JRed]

Thought he played very well. Could possibly have done better with one or two chances but he was always getting into good positions. The goals will come.

[sminp]

Elliott as well. Difficult to get either in our usual 433 but an ideal position would be as a 10 in 4231. It clearly works a lot better for Nunez and the fluidity of the attack in general now.

I thought about mentioning Elliott as I think he’d be great there but we’ve not really seen him play as a 10 that I can remember. Carvalho played most of last season there for Fulham.

[slaphead]

I really enjoy watching him play because he's something different from what we've seen the last few years in that central role. Really good movement, always on the shoulder, love that. If he maintains and improves that level of movement, the goals will start to fly in

[PEG2K]

Is that your take from him tonight? Disregard what he cost, his previous performances even and can you say that tonight he wasn’t impressive? Such a lethal player with his movement, and yeah we need the finishing to complement those runs.

I thought 'lethal' refers to the ability to bury chances, which he didn't tonight. Had 4 good chances and converted none.

We only look at it as a positive because we see Nunez as an up and coming player and we try to convince ourselves that next time it will be better, but really, a competent striker shouldn't waste that many chances. And only against cannon fodders like Rangers do we get that many chances.

On the other hand, his passing was really poor. Every time this guy crosses a ball, it's basically him hitting it aimlessly into the box and praying for good.

[tubby]

It's not 'very' skill based though. It is skill based sure. But shot location and volume matters way more than 'finishing ability' or 'composure' or whatever.

Composure matters a whole bunch.  Look at the difference between Cisse (just blasted every chance as hard as he could) with Henry (always looked for the bottom corner).  One was way more composed than the other.

Think Nunez will be fine, he's doing the right things and we've seen from his previous clubs he does have that composure needed in front of goal.  He just needs a couple to get motoring.

[Asam]

The challenge for us is that the players around him need to be very quick and hard working, when we had Salah, Mane and Firmino we effectively had 5 players who worked incredibly hard at recovering the ball, Firmino almost single handedly redefined the role of a false 9, he’s more of a traditional forward with great movement & he won’t physically bully defenders like Drogba

if Darwin is to become our main scorer then we need Diaz/Jota & our midfielders to be absolute work horses to create our unfair advantage

The 4-2-3-1 allows Diaz and Jota to play in positions where they are comfortable with but it won’t work against a lot of sides because we will end up being over run in midfield, we could do it against Rangers but not week in week out in the league

[Dougle]

He's got a pulse at least. Not seen any real quality at all yet though besides being great at thwacking it on target at the keeper.

I think when he starts scoring his calmness in front of goal will come. It's been an absolute washing machine of a season for him so far. It's a chaotic team, he's been shunted around, suspended, games postponed, no rhythm at all. It'll come.

[Samie]

I thought 'lethal' refers to the ability to bury chances, which he didn't tonight. Had 4 good chances and converted none.

We only look at it as a positive because we see Nunez as an up and coming player and we try to convince ourselves that next time it will be better, but really, a competent striker shouldn't waste that many chances. And only against cannon fodders like Rangers do we get that many chances.

On the other hand, his passing was really poor. Every time this guy crosses a ball, it's basically him hitting it aimlessly into the box and praying for good.

Shut up dickface.

[JasonF]

I thought 'lethal' refers to the ability to bury chances, which he didn't tonight. Had 4 good chances and converted none.

We only look at it as a positive because we see Nunez as an up and coming player and we try to convince ourselves that next time it will be better, but really, a competent striker shouldn't waste that many chances. And only against cannon fodders like Rangers do we get that many chances.

On the other hand, his passing was really poor. Every time this guy crosses a ball, it's basically him hitting it aimlessly into the box and praying for good.

It sounds like you are looking for negatives, not positives to me. I'm sure someone will post an every touch video of him in this thread in the next day or two and I'd suggest you give it a watch because some of his link up play was very good tonight. We certainly didn't look disjointed in attack.

[Fromola]

I thought 'lethal' refers to the ability to bury chances, which he didn't tonight. Had 4 good chances and converted none.

We only look at it as a positive because we see Nunez as an up and coming player and we try to convince ourselves that next time it will be better, but really, a competent striker shouldn't waste that many chances. And only against cannon fodders like Rangers do we get that many chances.

On the other hand, his passing was really poor. Every time this guy crosses a ball, it's basically him hitting it aimlessly into the box and praying for good.

Taking away the Palace game and it's practically his home debut bar a couple of late sub appearances. He showed last season he's capable of scoring goals and he's shown for us he's got all the credentials in terms of his movement and the goals will come as long as we play to his strengths and he gets a good run in the side.

[Passmaster Molby]

Keeper made some top saves - or we are talking about Darwin's hat trick

I think he needs to work on hitting the corners of the goal rather than just smashing it in the middle at the keeper. He could score loads for us if he was just a bit more clinical at avoiding the keeper.

[Angelius]

Composure matters a whole bunch.  Look at the difference between Cisse (just blasted every chance as hard as he could) with Henry (always looked for the bottom corner).  One was way more composed than the other.

Think Nunez will be fine, he's doing the right things and we've seen from his previous clubs he does have that composure needed in front of goal.  He just needs a couple to get motoring.

Not concerned about his finishing because he is obviously trying too hard to impress in some ways - once he settles more, we find a formation where he plays regularly, and he's gotten a bit of rhythm, he'll convert the impressive shot volume into goals.

Bigger concern is his passing, which should also improve for the same reasons above. But it needs more work than I expected - however, it can be mitigated with the set up we're using where we play more to his strengths (ala Haaland and Man City).

[jack witham]

He needs to be a bit cuter with his finishing, he tends to go for power , if he looked for the corners and stroked the ball
like Kenny and Rushie he would score more goals. Pretty sure he will score lots of goals though,he
gives us something different,I like him.

[Xanderzone]

I thought he played very well tonight. An absolute handful.

I'd let him try and build on it at the Emirates.

[groove]

Meh. Lets wait till we've had a big enough sample size to start making claims like that. Unless the 20-30% is something that holds across their careers so far? Having said that, we should all know Haaland is currently better and not be asking Nunez to be as good. The press and media might have put them side by side but one is a freakish monster of a footballer and one is a very good, but still raw, young striker.

Yeah, across his Dortmund and City career so far Haaland is 0.77 xG per goal. Which is admittedly very freakish and difficult to ask any player to match.

And I'm not being totally negative on Nunez here. He's clearly very good and will score a shit load purely from volume. But there are improvements that can be worked on when it comes to execution.

[rushyman]

He needs to be a bit cuter with his finishing, he tends to go for power , if he looked for the corners and stroked the ball
like Kenny and Rushie he would score more goals. Pretty sure he will score lots of goals though,he
gives us something different,I like him.

That’s clearly a man short on confidence

He’s not got the level he has by not being a good finisher

Anxiety is not a strikers friend