Topic: Darwin Núñez (Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro)

[mullyred94]

Their all round game is way better. Firmino used to be our first defender when out of possession and I can count on Mane to put the ball in the net when it matters

Nunez won the most games for his club in the EPL until a couple weeks ago, don’t know if his still 1st.

[Jm55]

The point is that Nunez has far more to his game. Jota is portrayed as a master finisher. Darwin is portrayed as someone who can't hit a barn door.

This is the issue with a lot of the discourse surrounding this (and many other) conversations about football.

Obviously there’s far more to Nunez’s game than being someone who ‘can’t hit a barn door’ and obviously Jota isn’t some super reliable Benzema esque marksman who rarely ever misses. People will try and make those sorts of arguments, usually because they don’t understand, or want to engage with the wider conversation.

What I will say, and this is purely anecdotal, is that when that ball was played across the goal to Nunez and the centre half clears it before he can reach it for a tap in, I geneuinly thought Nunez had got on the end of it and missed it, because it would be fairly consistent with the kind of thing we’ve seen from him this season. Equally; if he’s chipped some Pirlo esque effort from the edge of the area into the top corner it wouldn’t have surprised me either.

The question with Nunez for me is, if he doesn’t improve in any way from his current level, so we’re getting roughly 10-15 league goals a season plus a few against ‘lesser’ sides in Europe (as with the exception of the one he scored against Real all the other European ones have come against lesser sides) would you stick or twist? 2 months ago I think I’d have stuck, now I’m at the point where I feel he has to improve next season or I think we cut our losses.

[Darren G]

It also indicates Nunez is somehow getting FAR more chances.

Yeah, but that's a separate discussion. The lad seemed confused as to why people perceive Jota as a better finisher than Darwin, which was what I responded to.

[Mr Dilkington]

What's shameless is you tweaking for some stats as if he's just dropped the Holy grail. I've ignored it as its another ridiculous stat drop that proves nothing to the conversation.

Santiago Giminez is better on the ball than Darwin Nunez. That's a fact. I could get stats to prove anything in football if the recipients have never used their eyes.

Salah scored 44 goals in a season for us and had a boat load of criminal misses. I bet I can make his season look shite with some numbers if I wanted.

But keep going. Ridiculous....

Just very sad.

[mrantarctica]

This is the issue with a lot of the discourse surrounding this (and many other) conversations about football.

Obviously there’s far more to Nunez’s game than being someone who ‘can’t hit a barn door’ and obviously Jota isn’t some super reliable Benzema esque marksman who rarely ever misses. People will try and make those sorts of arguments, usually because they don’t understand, or want to engage with the wider conversation.

What I will say, and this is purely anecdotal, is that when that ball was played across the goal to Nunez and the centre half clears it before he can reach it for a tap in, I geneuinly thought Nunez had got on the end of it and missed it, because it would be fairly consistent with the kind of thing we’ve seen from him this season. Equally; if he’s chipped some Pirlo esque effort from the edge of the area into the top corner it wouldn’t have surprised me either.

The question with Nunez for me is, if he doesn’t improve in any way from his current level, so we’re getting roughly 10-15 league goals a season plus a few against ‘lesser’ sides in Europe (as with the exception of the one he scored against Real all the other European ones have come against lesser sides) would you stick or twist? 2 months ago I think I’d have stuck, now I’m at the point where I feel he has to improve next season or I think we cut our losses.

As you say, I think it depends on the wider contribution. We were more than happy to have Bobby Firmino playing CF for us and scoring 10-15/season because of all the other things he could do on the pitch, and we were a better team when he was in the side, than when he wasn't (for the most part).

I think there's a very good player there. He's very quick which is always a great quality in attacking players. I wonder if we are genuinely getting the most out of him in Klopp's system. I'd give him a decent chance under a new manager, just like many of the other players. Maybe if he's not contributing that much or not really adapting his game, then it's time to look for other solutions.

[Jon2lfc]

The lad needs to be put on the wing and he'd be great.
Leave the centre forward position to others.

[Crimson]

The lad needs to be put on the wing and he'd be great.
Leave the centre forward position to others.

Danns then? Who else we got that could play that role and is fit?

[MonsLibpool]

Danns then? Who else we got that could play that role and is fit?

We can sign someone in the summer. The remaining fixtures are dead rubbers anyway.

[Cruiser]

Danns then? Who else we got that could play that role and is fit?

We need an out and out striker of the Rush/Owen/Fowler/Torres mould. Danns is definately a potential for that role but we need to bring someone in over summer as we're clearly lacking there right now.

[Agent99]

If Giminez is better on the ball why has he got a lower pass completion rate 68.45% compared to Nunez with 72.59%, made far less successful passes 9.91 to Nunez's 14.59 per game. Why does he make far less key passes 1.01 compared to Nunez's 1.45 per game. He provides assists at a far lower rate 1 every 472 minutes compared to Nunez 1 every 250 minutes.

Why is he dispossessed 1.7 times per game compared to Nunez 1.2 per game. That is in a League that is way below the Premier League.

Maybe you need to take your eye test to Specsavers.

Al, what do you think Geoff Twentyman and his Cortina would make of Darwin?

[b_joseph]

Might be overreacting but his finishing cost us the title. Time an time again he misses a clear cut chance to open the score or put us 2-0 up and we end up conceding a goal and having to run after the score.

That part matters, too. And yesterday was a prime example of that part being an issue.

Darwin hasnt been good in front of goal. But this "failure" is spread around a lot of areas.

[Knight]

What's shameless is you tweaking for some stats as if he's just dropped the Holy grail. I've ignored it as its another ridiculous stat drop that proves nothing to the conversation.

Santiago Giminez is better on the ball than Darwin Nunez. That's a fact. I could get stats to prove anything in football if the recipients have never used their eyes.

Salah scored 44 goals in a season for us and had a boat load of criminal misses. I bet I can make his season look shite with some numbers if I wanted.

But keep going. Ridiculous....

You argued that Slot wants his forward really involved in the play. But Slot's forward isn't involved in the play as much as Nunez is for Liverpool.

Jota has an xG in the league of 5.3 and 10 goals. Nunez has an xG of 15.7 and 11 goals. Jota has been above his xG in the league in his three seasons with Liverpool, Nunez under his both seasons. 'Master finisher' strawman hyperbole aside, that stat alone indicates that Jota has done far better with his chances at the club.

They're both scoring at the same rate basically. One of them takes fewer chances to do it than the other. Who would you prefer? I'll take the player who gets more chances because he might well end up scoring more of them in future. And the other may well not be as clinical in the future. The biggest predictor of high goal scoring is quantity of high value shots taken.

That part matters, too. And yesterday was a prime example of that part being an issue.

Darwin hasnt been good in front of goal. But this "failure" is spread around a lot of areas.

In reality 'that part' is what's actually cost us the league.

[Darren G]

They're both scoring at the same rate basically. One of them takes fewer chances to do it than the other. Who would you prefer? I'll take the player who gets more chances because he might well end up scoring more of them in future. And the other may well not be as clinical in the future. The biggest predictor of high goal scoring is quantity of high value shots taken.

In reality 'that part' is what's actually cost us the league.

Again, my response was to Al seemingly being confused as to why people thought that Jota was a better finisher than Nunez, which is what I responded to. It was not a discussion about their overall merits as players or who I would prefer in the side. I was simply illustrating that Jota has only one less goal than Nunez despite a markedly lower xG, which suggests that he is the more efficient at putting away chances. 

Claiming that they are scoring at the same rate is simply not true. Darwin has only one more goal in the league than Jota, despite playing 850 minutes (over 9 games worth of minutes) more.  As for who may be more clinical in the future, it is impossible to say with a degree of certainty, but historical data suggests Jota. He has performed above his expected xG 4 out of the past 6 years. Nunez has been below his in 4 out of the past 5.

[PaleBlueDot]

Firmino's best season was when he got 15 League goals and in 8 seasons here scored 82 League goals so 10.5 per season. Not good enough.

Mane's had one season when he scored 20+ league goals and in 6 seasons scored 90 League goals so 15 per season. Not good enough for you.

Interestingly at a similar age to Nunez now in their two first full seasons playing more minutes than Nunez. Firmino got 21 goals and Mane got 23 goals. With 3 games left Nunez has 20 in his first two seasons.

So why were Mane and Firmino clearly good enough but Nunez isn't?

This is why you can't take staticos serious.

[Mr Dilkington]

This is why you can't take staticos serious.

But seemingly 'staticos' should take people like you seriously. I.e. you say something you've made up in your head, evidence is presented to demonstrate it's nonsense but you plough ahead anyway and carry on pretending you're right despite all the evidence to the contrary.

[Darren G]

This is why you can't take staticos serious.

Not even a good stato at that. "20 goals in his first two seasons" means 15 and 18. Not sure what post those comparisons with Bobby and Mane originated in, but why anybody is comparing Firmino and Mane to Nunez is strange. Completely different kinds of players.   

[alonsoisared]

So we agree per 90 is the way to measure players - given your realisation around KDB and Jota?

I'm happy to talk about other things like you've posted here.. but not if you and others aren't accepting per 90 as a measure of a players production

There can be nuance beyond that but you can't say a players return is objectviely bad (objectively means factual) for 'an entire season' without your start point being minutes on the pitch - fair?

But there's a very big difference between missing games due to injury and missing games because you're available but your manager doesn't think you're the right player to start, or he has picked you but you haven't offered much and you've been subbed off with 20 minutes still to play. When key players are available they start, that isn't the case with Nunez and that in itself is an issue considering the money we paid for him. Like I said before, we aren't city and when we spend that kind of money we need a return.

Goals per 90 is obviously the easiest way to measure but there is nuance there. The fact is that Nunez has been available practically all season (33 league matches), and only has 11 goals to his name.  His finishing for the most part has been awful and has shown no improvement on last season. Saying that he's a 28 goal a season striker based on his underlying numbers is lovely but unless those missing 17 goals can be added to our total then it is totally meaningless.

[Kansti]

They're both scoring at the same rate basically. One of them takes fewer chances to do it than the other. Who would you prefer? I'll take the player who gets more chances because he might well end up scoring more of them in future. And the other may well not be as clinical in the future. The biggest predictor of high goal scoring is quantity of high value shots taken.

Game is tight. We have a crucial chance to score to level the game or score the winner. Hand on heart, who do you want the chance falling to? Darwin or Jota?

[killer-heels]

One thing that hasnt been discussed is that despite this player being pushed for by the manager and Ljinders, that this is the second season in a row where effectively he has been left out of crucial games in the run-in. Last season it was from the Leeds game which was 9 out that Gakpo was preferred and here its from the second Atalanta game.

He may have played the Everton game anyway but it was likely Jota or Gakpo started that one.

[Bangin Them In]

Game is tight. We have a crucial chance to score to level the game or score the winner. Hand on heart, who do you want the chance falling to? Darwin or Jota?

Do you mean in the 10 games a year Jota is available?
He’s a fabulous player but his quality is pointless if he can’t play

[Eeyore]

Again, my response was to Al seemingly being confused as to why people thought that Jota was a better finisher than Nunez, which is what I responded to. It was not a discussion about their overall merits as players or who I would prefer in the side. I was simply illustrating that Jota has only one less goal than Nunez despite a markedly lower xG, which suggests that he is the more efficient at putting away chances. 

Claiming that they are scoring at the same rate is simply not true. Darwin has only one more goal in the league than Jota, despite playing 850 minutes (over 9 games worth of minutes) more.  As for who may be more clinical in the future, it is impossible to say with a degree of certainty, but historical data suggests Jota. He has performed above his expected xG 4 out of the past 6 years. Nunez has been below his in 4 out of the past 5.

Does it indicate Jota is a better finisher or is it just the fact that Jota only really attempts the kind of chances that he is very good at. Jota is very much a penalty box striker who likes get into the area and shoot low and hard across the keeper. That is fine if he is just being selective with his opportunities and is providing loads of assists.

The bit you seem to be missing is that what counts is how many goals you score.

In those 4 seasons you speak about that Jota exceeded his xG his xG was pretty low. Those seasons had an xG's of 6.72, 6.44, 7.06 and 8.91. Ironically his two most productive seasons for xG were 21/22 when he had an xG of 17.35 but only scored 15 and 19/20 when an xG of 12.02 resulted in only 7 goals.

That to me indicates two things Jota doesn't create a high xG and he is far more clinical when he restricts how many shots he is taking on. The strikers who score lots of goals tend to take on far more shots. That for me is why Nunez has far more chance of turning into a 20-25 League goals striker than Jota.

[Eeyore]

Game is tight. We have a crucial chance to score to level the game or score the winner. Hand on heart, who do you want the chance falling to? Darwin or Jota?

The thing is Darwin is far more likely to get on the end of that chance than Jota.

[Kansti]

The thing is Darwin is far more likely to get on the end of that chance than Jota.

If you’re talking about availability, I agree. If you are referring to him actually getting a chance more often due to xG, ok I can buy it. But at the end of the day, if there’s a chance I would much rather it falls to Jota than Darwin. In a very simplistic sense, that lack of confidence in Darwin highlights how far he is away from being elite. At least to me.

I still have hope for him, but he needs to start getting clinical quickly. Him getting so many chances a game and failing to score more often is a huge psychological issue, that has a snowball effect on the team. And that’s something you can’t quantify in statistics.

[newterp]

Haha -  troll football says when asked what happened between Klopp and Salah - Nunez said he missed it.

[johnathank]

Does it indicate Jota is a better finisher or is it just the fact that Jota only really attempts the kind of chances that he is very good at. Jota is very much a penalty box striker who likes get into the area and shoot low and hard across the keeper. That is fine if he is just being selective with his opportunities and is providing loads of assists.

Can you, or anyone, tell me what kind of chances Darwin is very good at?

[Knight]

Again, my response was to Al seemingly being confused as to why people thought that Jota was a better finisher than Nunez, which is what I responded to. It was not a discussion about their overall merits as players or who I would prefer in the side. I was simply illustrating that Jota has only one less goal than Nunez despite a markedly lower xG, which suggests that he is the more efficient at putting away chances. 

Claiming that they are scoring at the same rate is simply not true. Darwin has only one more goal in the league than Jota, despite playing 850 minutes (over 9 games worth of minutes) more.  As for who may be more clinical in the future, it is impossible to say with a degree of certainty, but historical data suggests Jota. He has performed above his expected xG 4 out of the past 6 years. Nunez has been below his in 4 out of the past 5.

Yes sorry I was posting at slightly cross purposes to your discussion with AL. But let me respond to what you've said here now you've kindly engaged with me to. AL posted their numbers across multiple seasons so I'm going to go with that (I assume it's accurate). They basically score goals at the same rate. One per 183/184 minutes. Given that you get a choice between a player who takes more high value shots and one who finishes more clinically. However, at least recently the more clinical player has been running hot and will probably cool off (Jota) and the one with the higher shot count (and shot value) has been running cold and will probably revert to the mean to some extent (Nunez). It's really not clear you want the player who takes fewer shots to score the same number of goals. You probably want the player who takes more shots to score the same number of goals because he may well improve and/or get luckier and so score more. His goal scoring ceiling is higher. I wasn't claiming that Nunez will become more clinical than Jota by the way, rather that Jota is likely to be less clinical in future than he's been this season (which is an outlier for him)

Game is tight. We have a crucial chance to score to level the game or score the winner. Hand on heart, who do you want the chance falling to? Darwin or Jota?

Jota obviously. Especially this season's Jota who has been (unsustainably) clinical. No one doubles their xG over a big enough sample size. But this fails to understand the benefit of Nunez in comparison with Jota. Which is that he's a little more likely to actually get real chances to score goals than Jota. He's a bit better at the thing we don't really notice and don't really commend. Which is actually being in positions to take high value shots in the first place. Because he manages to get so many, and at least in part because he's been unlucky this season and has missed a lot, we also see more misses and that bleeds through into our outlook about him. If you see a player miss 3 or 4 presentable chances in a game on a consistent basis it will be very frustrating and you're going to need that player to finish more often in the future. But that frustration means you're unlikely to notice a key thing hiding in plain sight... the vast majority of forwards wouldn't even be in position to have so many chances in the first place. And that ability to get into position is absolutely key to being a top level forward. That said the jota vs Nunez comparison is pointless because Jota does a great job at taking lots of high value shots.

[Darren G]

Does it indicate Jota is a better finisher or is it just the fact that Jota only really attempts the kind of chances that he is very good at. Jota is very much a penalty box striker who likes get into the area and shoot low and hard across the keeper. That is fine if he is just being selective with his opportunities and is providing loads of assists.

The bit you seem to be missing is that what counts is how many goals you score.

In those 4 seasons you speak about that Jota exceeded his xG his xG was pretty low. Those seasons had an xG's of 6.72, 6.44, 7.06 and 8.91. Ironically his two most productive seasons for xG were 21/22 when he had an xG of 17.35 but only scored 15 and 19/20 when an xG of 12.02 resulted in only 7 goals.

That to me indicates two things Jota doesn't create a high xG and he is far more clinical when he restricts how many shots he is taking on. The strikers who score lots of goals tend to take on far more shots. That for me is why Nunez has far more chance of turning into a 20-25 League goals striker than Jota.

I'm not interested in your personal interpretation, or more accurately speculation upon your part regarding "Jota only really attempts the kind of chances that he is very good at". It's the worst kind of rationalisation and clearly not the case if you've watched him play, so I'll stick to facts:

You were perplexed at why people thought that Jota was a better finisher than Nunez. Well, it's because he puts his chances away, as evidenced by the xG vs goals scored, both for this season and previous seasons compared to Nunez overall. The xG pool of 55 goals measured over 6 seasons for Jota is an ample pool to draw conclusions from, regardless of how you want to spin it. 

  In terms of the "what counts is how many goals you score" argument, you were previously arguing (using cherry-picked stats incidentally) for Nunez having not scored as many as others in the league due to less minutes played. So why is it that you conveniently don't apply the same logic when talking about Jota? Because the fact is that he has 1 goal less this season in the league than Nunez, having played over 9 games worth of minutes less, so using your previous argument has been far more prolific than Nunez, having a goal every 114 minutes vs Nunex goal every 181 minutes.  This despite him apparently "being selective" or some such bollocks. Strange.

Finally, you argue that Nunez has a high chance of turning into a 20-25 goal a season striker because he has so many shots. If - and it's a big IF - Nunez can sort his finishing out then great, he could be a massive threat.  I find it hard to believe that will somehow magically happen though after seeing no improvement in his finishing in two years here.  It's all well and good arguing that players who take more shots score more goals, but that is only true if you are also able to finish those chances. Nunez has more shots on goal than any other player in the league with 104 shots...and 11 goals. Isak, as an example of contrast, has 19 goals from 61 shots.

[rossipersempre]

The lad needs to be put on the wing and he'd be great.
Leave the centre forward position to others.

The Djibril Cissé protocol? Hmmm, might be something in that.

[killer-heels]

The lad needs to be put on the wing and he'd be great.
Leave the centre forward position to others.

Why? Honestly people seem to think being on the wing is just about running fast in a straight line. When he has played there he has been decent but whats clear is he can hardly dribble past a player, he doesnt hold the ball well, he is poor at providing defensive cover.

His best attribute is that he gets into good positions and gets good chances, which we have seen that number decreases when he plays wide.

[Egyptian36]

If I learned something from watching football all these years it's that you take care of your defense first. We need to fix our midfield and how we defend then worry about our attack.

[lgvkarlos]

If I learned something from watching football all these years it's that you take care of your defense first. We need to fix our midfield and how we defend then worry about our attack.

Agree, teams are scoring against us with often the first attack. Also our build up has become excruciatingly slow, which doesn't help Darwin or Mo.

[Darren G]

Yes sorry I was posting at slightly cross purposes to your discussion with AL. But let me respond to what you've said here now you've kindly engaged with me to. AL posted their numbers across multiple seasons so I'm going to go with that (I assume it's accurate). They basically score goals at the same rate. One per 183/184 minutes. Given that you get a choice between a player who takes more high value shots and one who finishes more clinically. However, at least recently the more clinical player has been running hot and will probably cool off (Jota) and the one with the higher shot count (and shot value) has been running cold and will probably revert to the mean to some extent (Nunez). It's really not clear you want the player who takes fewer shots to score the same number of goals. You probably want the player who takes more shots to score the same number of goals because he may well improve and/or get luckier and so score more. His goal scoring ceiling is higher. I wasn't claiming that Nunez will become more clinical than Jota by the way, rather that Jota is likely to be less clinical in future than he's been this season (which is an outlier for him)

Jota obviously. Especially this season's Jota who has been (unsustainably) clinical. No one doubles their xG over a big enough sample size. But this fails to understand the benefit of Nunez in comparison with Jota. Which is that he's a little more likely to actually get real chances to score goals than Jota. He's a bit better at the thing we don't really notice and don't really commend. Which is actually being in positions to take high value shots in the first place. Because he manages to get so many, and at least in part because he's been unlucky this season and has missed a lot, we also see more misses and that bleeds through into our outlook about him. If you see a player miss 3 or 4 presentable chances in a game on a consistent basis it will be very frustrating and you're going to need that player to finish more often in the future. But that frustration means you're unlikely to notice a key thing hiding in plain sight... the vast majority of forwards wouldn't even be in position to have so many chances in the first place. And that ability to get into position is absolutely key to being a top level forward. That said the jota vs Nunez comparison is pointless because Jota does a great job at taking lots of high value shots.

OK, I won't address all of this as I've already covered most in other posts, But...If you want to talk about outliers, then I don't feel that this season can be described as Nunez "running cold", as this is how Nunez has been in every season but one of his professional career. His second season at Benfica is the actual outlier. The rest of the time he's been pretty much like what we're seeing now.  Time will tell and I do genuinely want Darwin to succeed, but  in my opinion it's quite likely that we're just going to be getting more of the same going forward and what you perceive as running cold is simply his normal level across a season.

This season is not an really that much of an outlier for how clinical Jota has been either. He's outperformed his xG for three of the past four years, falling marginally under it in the other season (21/22).  He's had more chances,so perhaps his positioning has improved or maybe that aspect is just dumb luck. In terms of how clinical he has been though, it's been pretty much 'par for the course' as it were.

[PaleBlueDot]

But seemingly 'staticos' should take people like you seriously. I.e. you say something you've made up in your head, evidence is presented to demonstrate it's nonsense but you plough ahead anyway and carry on pretending you're right despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Honestly, I do love stats. Up until someone tries to use it to tell me Nunez is having comparable seasons to Mane/Firmino in effectiveness.

[Eeyore]

I'm not interested in your personal interpretation, or more accurately speculation upon your part regarding "Jota only really attempts the kind of chances that he is very good at". It's the worst kind of rationalisation and clearly not the case if you've watched him play, so I'll stick to facts:

You were perplexed at why people thought that Jota was a better finisher than Nunez. Well, it's because he puts his chances away, as evidenced by the xG vs goals scored, both for this season and previous seasons compared to Nunez overall. The xG pool of 55 goals measured over 6 seasons for Jota is an ample pool to draw conclusions from, regardless of how you want to spin it. 

  In terms of the "what counts is how many goals you score" argument, you were previously arguing (using cherry-picked stats incidentally) for Nunez having not scored as many as others in the league due to less minutes played. So why is it that you conveniently don't apply the same logic when talking about Jota? Because the fact is that he has 1 goal less this season in the league than Nunez, having played over 9 games worth of minutes less, so using your previous argument has been far more prolific than Nunez, having a goal every 114 minutes vs Nunex goal every 181 minutes.  This despite him apparently "being selective" or some such bollocks. Strange.

Finally, you argue that Nunez has a high chance of turning into a 20-25 goal a season striker because he has so many shots. If - and it's a big IF - Nunez can sort his finishing out then great, he could be a massive threat.  I find it hard to believe that will somehow magically happen though after seeing no improvement in his finishing in two years here.  It's all well and good arguing that players who take more shots score more goals, but that is only true if you are also able to finish those chances. Nunez has more shots on goal than any other player in the league with 104 shots...and 11 goals. Isak, as an example of contrast, has 19 goals from 61 shots.

The thing is there isn't that much of a difference between their goals to xG over their careers. Nunez is slightly under his 68 goals to 74 xG whilst Jota is slightly over 57 goals to 55 xG. Then you look at their goalscoring rate throughout their career and Nunez is at .61 goals per 90 minutes played, whilst Jota is at .46 goals per 90 minute played.

Then we look at G+A through their careers and Nunez is .82 per 90, whilst Jota is on .60.

Given that Nunez is two and a half years younger and has a better recent injury record then for me it is clear which one of them is more likely to be a 20-25 League goal striker.

[Eeyore]

Honestly, I do love stats. Up until someone tries to use it to tell me Nunez is having comparable seasons to Mane/Firmino in effectiveness.

The issue is that I didn't I was replying to a poster who stated that Liverpool strikers have to be getting 20+ League goals per season.

[PEG2K]

It is a pretty unique situation we are in though. How often has a top team had 5 top forwards who are all basically more than capable of starting games. Nunez is being compared to the current top goalscorers in the League. The likes of Watkins, Solanke, Bowen etc. The thing is they are all playing 3000 plus minutes this season.

When we had the likes of Salah, Mane and Firmino they all had seasons in which they played 3000+ minutes. Last season for instance Salah played 3294 minutes that does not include added time. So that was 3294 out of a possible 3420 minutes. So yes forwards do get to play 90 minutes for pretty much every League game in a season. Solanke this season for instance has played 3030 from a possible 3060 minutes.

Nunez has 3696 league minutes in his entire Liverpool career. So basically 1.08 seasons of League football. In that number of minutes he has scored 20 League goals despite not being on penalties and despite not having the team setup to play to his strengths. There have been comparisons to the likes of Solanke, Watkins and Toney. How many goals would they be getting if they were at Liverpool competing with the likes of Diaz, Jota, Gakpo and Salah for minutes.

As I said we are in a pretty unique in having 5 genuine starting forwards.

This is another type of mental gymnastics as well lol. You're making it up as if because we have 5 starting forwards so Nunez doesn't get a large share of minutes, and that he would keep up his scoring rate if he were played more. But the reality is he had been dropped from the starting lineup from time to time due to bad form, and a few injuries as well.

If we're going by your logic then Origi had a goal every 160 minutes in his ENTIRE Liverpool career. Why did we let him go for free when he was entering the prime age for a striker and spent 80 mil on a downgrade lol?

The funny thing is the same posters who are praising our other forwards here ("5 genuine starting forwards") when it suits their argument about Nunez, could very well go to their threads to criticize them. Isn't that you who claimed in the Jota thread that he has never been starting material for us?

[Darren G]

The thing is there isn't that much of a difference between their goals to xG over their careers. Nunez is slightly under his 68 goals to 74 xG whilst Jota is slightly over 57 goals to 55 xG. Then you look at their goalscoring rate throughout their career and Nunez is at .61 goals per 90 minutes played, whilst Jota is at .46 goals per 90 minute played.

Then we look at G+A through their careers and Nunez is .82 per 90, whilst Jota is on .60.

Given that Nunez is two and a half years younger and has a better recent injury record then for me it is clear which one of them is more likely to be a 20-25 League goal striker.

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. 

[Eeyore]

This is another type of mental gymnastics as well lol. You're making it up as if because we have 5 starting forwards so Nunez doesn't get a large share of minutes, and that he would keep up his scoring rate if he were played more. But the reality is he had been dropped from the starting lineup from time to time due to bad form, and a few injuries as well.

If we're going by your logic then Origi had a goal every 160 minutes in his ENTIRE Liverpool career. Why did we let him go for free when he was entering the prime age for a striker and spent 80 mil on a downgrade lol?

He has been dropped from the starting lineup precisely because we have such good options. Bar Salah our forwards also tend to get hooked precisely because we have such good options.

[Eeyore]

So ignore almost all of what I actually wrote and switch to xG per 90 now? 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. 

You posted a piece complaining about me using my opinion. So I posted a piece entirely made up of stats, now you are complaining about that.

As for cherry-picking stats. Fuck me you are calling Nunez's season at Benfica an outlier whilst stating that this season when Jota has scored 10 goals against an xG of 5.3 as normal.

Before this season they were neck and neck in terms of goals versus xG. Jota has since had a season where he hit double his xG and Nunez has had a poor season in terms of goals versus xG but has hit the woodwork a completely abnormal amount of times. 

[Knight]

OK, I won't address all of this as I've already covered most in other posts, But...If you want to talk about outliers, then I don't feel that this season can be described as Nunez "running cold", as this is how Nunez has been in every season but one of his professional career. His second season at Benfica is the actual outlier. The rest of the time he's been pretty much like what we're seeing now.  Time will tell and I do genuinely want Darwin to succeed, but  in my opinion it's quite likely that we're just going to be getting more of the same going forward and what you perceive as running cold is simply his normal level across a season.

This season is not an really that much of an outlier for how clinical Jota has been either. He's outperformed his xG for three of the past four years, falling marginally under it in the other season (21/22).  He's had more chances,so perhaps his positioning has improved or maybe that aspect is just dumb luck. In terms of how clinical he has been though, it's been pretty much 'par for the course' as it were.

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.