Topic: Darwin Núñez (Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro)

[Mr Dilkington]

Sure, I can agree that finishing is more variant than underlying performance. But I don't think it's as variant as you are making out for high-class finishers. Of course you will find one bad season of finishing for players like Lewandowski and Messi, especially towards the latter stages of their career in lesser functioning teams.

If you take Darwin as an example, he has underperformed in every season except one. Therefore that overperformance becomes the outlier until proven otherwise.

Like I said, the absurdity of all of this is that very overperformance led the stat guys on here to question his signing. Yet now he is consistently underperforming, they are in his corner while slating Jota for being on a hot streak. There is some very skewed logic going on here - it comes across as smartarsery.

Lewandowski isn't a high-class finisher, he is bang on his xG across his career. Also xG to goal conversion has zero to do with team performance. If De Bruyne picks someone out for a 0.7xG chance in a 100 point City team it's exactly the same as if Jayden Bogle picks someone out for a 0.7xG chance.

Sadio Mane underperformed his xG in 4 out of his last 6 seasons with Liverpool and Bayern. Is he a bad finisher?

[Mr Dilkington]

Okay sure, citation please. On that page, it gives info for five seasons where his xG is 73.4 and his actual goals are 68. That is not near exactly the same. If he'd hit average in that abnormal last season it would be at something like 60 against 73. His shots-to-goal total has also been similarly bad for three of those last four seasons.

Wyscout has data for 17k minutes and has him on 0.60 goals from 0.57xG.

[mullyred94]

Slating may be an exaggeration, but go and look in his thread. Dilks and Jack will gleefully point out every time he misses, just because they can't accept that finishing is a skill, and Jota is the best player in our squad at that.

Thats ridiculous its been argued Jota is one of the best finishers Liverpool have had since Folwer Owen etc?


If you're alluding to people saying oh jota missed imagine if that was Nunez which the point has been proven because theres been 10 pages about Nunez hitting a shot at the keeper vs Jota missing an open goal granted the defender blocked it.

I mean if you look at it like that you can understand why people would bring it up no?

I mean there was a point Diaz was free on the pen spot for a cut back from Salah yet he chose to shoot, is there 10 pages on his decision making ?

[Buster Gonad]

God I hope he scores tonight before this thread pass Salahs

[mullyred94]

I'm sorry but I have no idea what 'significantly below is a stretch his 4 below in the EPL by fbref?' means , so it's difficult to really mount an argument against it.

If you click the link it says his XG is 15, his non pen XG is 14.2 his scored 11 goals....


Newsflash the best FINISHER on the planet has an XG of 23.2 and has scored 20 goals....

[LallanaInPyjamas]

Lewandowski isn't a high-class finisher, he is bang on his xG across his career. Also xG to goal conversion has zero to do with team performance. If De Bruyne picks someone out for a 0.7xG chance in a 100 point City team it's exactly the same as if Jayden Bogle picks someone out for a 0.7xG chance.

Sadio Mane underperformed his xG in 4 out of his last 6 seasons with Liverpool and Bayern. Is he a bad finisher?

Again, you are referencing one chance (useful xG) to make a wider point about xG accumulation. If Messi is having to take a higher proportion of shots from distance, or with more players in front & around him because he has less talented team-mates to occupy defenders, then it's pretty obvious his conversion rate is going to drop especially when he is past his peak and probably doesn't give much of a fuck anymore.

I wouldn't say Mane was a natural finisher to be honest, but he was more prolific than Nunez for sure. Like Jota, he was a triple threat with either foot and his head, and that always gave me more confidence in him scoring. He's a good example for variance, though, because he definitely went through peaks and troughs. But those troughs were rarely if ever as low as what we have seen from Nunez for the majority of his time here so far.

[mullyred94]

If he is an average finisher with elite chance creation for himself and teammates and is effective how is HE the problem?

[JackWard33]

Slating may be an exaggeration, but go and look in his thread. Dilks and Jack will gleefully point out every time he misses a good chance, just because they can't accept that finishing is a skill, and Jota is the best player in our squad at that.

Finishing is a skill... where did I (or anyone) say it isn't?
We're arguing over how important it is/ isn't

[CowboyKangaroo]

The funny thing is is that for the last few months his finishing has been exactly average. 10 goals from 10.2 xG since December - yet the last few months are stilling feeding into the perception bias.

Also Lallana - your point about stats people being less excited about him isn't a contradiction - its consistency. It was an over-performance likely caused by variance, just as his premier league time is under-performance likely caused by variance. What the stats guys were worried about was that he looked better than he was combined with the assumption that his underlying numbers would likely drop after moving to a better league. Its the latter point which was wrong - not the former - he maintained his excellent under-lying numbers.

If a new prospective signing scores 1.2 goals per 90 of 0.8 xG, I'll still be excited about him (because the underlying numbers are fantastic), whilst also pointing out that we shouldn't expect that level of over-performance to continue. However, if we went for someone like Gyakores, I'd not be so excited, because he has good but not amazing underlying numbers, and looks better than he is due to variance.

[Sheer Magnetism]

Wyscout has data for 17k minutes and has him on 0.60 goals from 0.57xG.

Cool, could you post the stats for each season then? Is there anything in there to dispute his last season at Benfica being a massive outlier compared to the other three? Or are we going to assume the Portuguese second division or sub appearances in the Uruguyan league are just as relevant?

If you click the link it says his XG is 15, his non pen XG is 14.2 his scored 11 goals....

Newsflash the best FINISHER on the planet has an XG of 23.2 and has scored 20 goals....

Yeah, 11 compared to 15 is very low for a single season, it's lower than everyone else in the league as far as I can tell, and the impact is heightened when you take more shots than almost everyone else. As for Haaland (this is who you're referring to?), he's outperformed his xG comfortably in every other season. That's what I'm saying - one season out of four or five isn't representative!

[mullyred94]

Cool, could you post the stats for each season then? Is there anything in there to dispute his last season at Benfica being a massive outlier compared to the other three? Or are we going to assume the Portuguese second division or sub appearances in the Uruguyan league are just as relevant?
 
Yeah, 11 compared to 15 is very low for a single season, it's lower than almost everyone else in the league, and the impact is heightened when you take more shots than almost everyone else. As for Haaland (this is who you're referring to?), he's outperformed his xG comfortably in every other season. That's what I'm saying - one season out of four or five isn't representative!

Well MY overall point was that his overall effectiveness makes up for his average finishing does it not?

19.8 xg and xa, his got 19 goals and assists.

20 if you count the pen won against city.

[JackWard33]

 
Yeah, 11 compared to 15 is very low for a single season, it's lower than everyone else in the league as far as I can tell,

Exactly!

This is the whole point that keeps going round and round
He's had a terrible finishing year but still put up excellent goal scoring numbers ... while having a terrible finishing year.

Even if all the doubters turn out to be right.. and he is uniquely gifted in all of football to miss "big chances" and has a savant like ability to hit the woodwork that he keeps repeating... he'll still put up excellent goal scoring numbers

[mullyred94]

exactly

this is the whole point that keeps going round and round
he's had a terrible finishing year but still put up excellent goal scoring numbers ... while having a terrible finishing year

even if all the doubters turn out to be right.. and he is uniquely gifted in all of football and has a savant like ability to hit the woodwork that he keeps repeating... he'll still put up excellent goal scoring numbers

I don't understand why people can't understand this, 19 goals and assists and his got more in him CLEARLY.

[JackWard33]

I don't understand why people can't understand this,

It's the most confusing thing I've talked about in 15 years of football conversations

Even if he's the worst finisher in top flight football and he has a permanent hex over his finishing in specifically the premier league and is a unique outlier that disproves everything we know about xg .... he's put up 11 goals and 8 assists in 20.8 90s!!!!!!!!!

[Scottymuser]

Can't believe this is still a discussion about how good or bad he is. If hes a forward and can't finish the consistently good chances we offer up then we need to look elsewhere. I'll still support him and hope to see improvement but hes had long enough to show that his consistency is far too questionable. The only hope is he hits a run if he peaks in a year or two and is still here.

But you could say that about Mane and Firmino for most of their time here - not as much as Nunez, but for most of their time here, they both failed to meet the xG created for them.  Nunez is a creative god, though - even more so than Bobby F.

[jepovic]

The funny thing is is that for the last few months his finishing has been exactly average. 10 goals from 10.2 xG since December - yet the last few months are stilling feeding into the perception bias.

Also Lallana - your point about stats people being less excited about him isn't a contradiction - its consistency. It was an over-performance likely caused by variance, just as his premier league time is under-performance likely caused by variance. What the stats guys were worried about was that he looked better than he was combined with the assumption that his underlying numbers would likely drop after moving to a better league. Its the latter point which was wrong - not the former - he maintained his excellent under-lying numbers.

If a new prospective signing scores 1.2 goals per 90 of 0.8 xG, I'll still be excited about him (because the underlying numbers are fantastic), whilst also pointing out that we shouldn't expect that level of over-performance to continue. However, if we went for someone like Gyakores, I'd not be so excited, because he has good but not amazing underlying numbers, and looks better than he is due to variance.

Yeah, agree, and the problem with Nunez in the last couple of games has been chance creation, not finishing. But the myth is strong

[Kopenhagen]

But you could say that about Mane and Firmino for most of their time here - not as much as Nunez, but for most of their time here, they both failed to meet the xG created for them.  Nunez is a creative god, though - even more so than Bobby F.

It's almost as if there are narratives which distort what people see with their own eyes. It'd be great if we had something that could analyze all of this stuff in the cold light of day...

[Scottymuser]

Again, you are referencing one chance (useful xG) to make a wider point about xG accumulation. If Messi is having to take a higher proportion of shots from distance, or with more players in front & around him because he has less talented team-mates to occupy defenders, then it's pretty obvious his conversion rate is going to drop especially when he is past his peak and probably doesn't give much of a fuck anymore.

I wouldn't say Mane was a natural finisher to be honest, but he was more prolific than Nunez for sure. Like Jota, he was a triple threat with either foot and his head, and that always gave me more confidence in him scoring. He's a good example for variance, though, because he definitely went through peaks and troughs. But those troughs were rarely if ever as low as what we have seen from Nunez for the majority of his time here so far.

Mane wasn't more prolific though, for pretty much all of his career.  Not at all.  After his second season, for instance, he'd played a little over 4400 minutes, and was averaging a goal every 192.4 mins, or a goal involvement every 126.4.  At this point, with Nunez being mostly labelled as a flop last season, and a lot of people on here (including you) looking like you want rid of him, averages a goal every 178.6 and a goal involvement every 115.2.  In 2 of his other 4 seasons he averaged a goal every 177 mins or worse twice (and after that, his creation went way down).  Only in one season did he have a goal involvement better than one every 120 mins - and nothing close to Nunez's hot season this one with his crazy assists.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

Mane wasn't more prolific though, for pretty much all of his career.  Not at all.  After his second season, for instance, he'd played a little over 4400 minutes, and was averaging a goal every 192.4 mins, or a goal involvement every 126.4.  At this point, with Nunez being mostly labelled as a flop last season, and a lot of people on here (including you) looking like you want rid of him, averages a goal every 178.6 and a goal involvement every 115.2.  In 2 of his other 4 seasons he averaged a goal every 177 mins or worse twice (and after that, his creation went way down).  Only in one season did he have a goal involvement better than one every 120 mins - and nothing close to Nunez's hot season this one with his crazy assists.

Nope.

And when I say prolific, I mean ability in front of goal. Whether running through on goal or reacting inside the box, Mane was more skilled in that way than Nunez is, in my opinion. I think it would be churlish not to consider the amount of work Mane did for us in terms of build-up, tracking back and predominantly playing in a wide position, too. He was a phenomenal footballer - almost the perfect forward, as Trent called him recently.

[newterp]

This thread is nuts.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

This thread is nuts.

Nuts, now we're talking. They're tasty and full of protein. High xFat though.

[newterp]

Nuts, now we're talking. They're tasty and full of protein. High xFat though.

there are jokes here to be made. granted very childish ones - but they are there nonetheless!

[LallanaInPyjamas]

Also Lallana - your point about stats people being less excited about him isn't a contradiction - its consistency. It was an over-performance likely caused by variance, just as his premier league time is under-performance likely caused by variance. What the stats guys were worried about was that he looked better than he was combined with the assumption that his underlying numbers would likely drop after moving to a better league. Its the latter point which was wrong - not the former - he maintained his excellent under-lying numbers.

You call it consistency; I call it smartarsery and stupidity. If he was still overperforming his xG, those same people would probably still be warning that he's on a hot streak and the end of the world is soon upon us.

[Scottymuser]

For Liverpool, he's 12.66 goals under what he should be in the Premier League. We've just heard that 3500 minutes is enough of a sample size to be sure about something, so I think that tells us he's considerably below average at finishing.

No he isn't?  Understat is not a particularly good xG to use, as if there are two shots (one being saved by the keeper, who parries it to the same player say) they can have an xG of >1 - when it is obvious that you can only score 1 goal - so even if they score it, they have still under-performed the model!  So you in the case of strikers where they put a lot of their shots close enough to the keeper to save, and rebound (as opposed to hitting them high and wide), understat will quite often be significantly higher in the xG.  Whereas fbref, and the like, have him on a much more sensible npxG of 26.3 compared to his 20 goals.

The thing is, finishing *can* be learnt - Suarez for instance was about as good a finisher for us over his first 2 seasons as Nunez (he was, before you tgry and argue otherwise), but then it clicked and he exploded.  Ditto someone like Forlan - at United, getting loads of good chances but always getting unlucky; left United and in a team where he felt more comfortable it clicked, and he was a top 5 player in the world for 5+ years.  And Nunez is still only 24.

What the stats also tell us is he is a creative *GOD*, this season especially - which none of Gakpo, Diaz or Jota are particularly good at.  So the question then becomes - does his creativity outweight his (for now) poorer finishing, and can his finishing be improved.  My argument (as is many on here) is yes to the first, and probably yes to the second.  He has hit the post 12 times right?  Now some of those were world class keeping; which is unlucky.  But even on those others - hitting the post means you were only 2-3 inches away from scoring - I'd argue that someone who does hit the post a lot is more likely to be able to make that final 1% adjustment and start banging them in, compared to someone who misses more often by not hitting the target.

[Scottymuser]

Nope.

And when I say prolific, I mean ability in front of goal. Whether running through on goal or reacting inside the box, Mane was more skilled in that way than Nunez is, in my opinion. I think it would be churlish not to consider the amount of work Mane did for us in terms of build-up, tracking back and predominantly playing in a wide position, too. He was a phenomenal footballer - almost the perfect forward, as Trent called him recently.

Have you not been watching Nunez this year?  He has been brilliant at tracking back, leading the press, etc.  Far better than he was the previous season.  I'd argue that Nunez's work rate is really not to be sniffed at - and the amount of time he creates attacks by winning the ball back in and around the centre circle is great.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

Have you not been watching Nunez this year?  He has been brilliant at tracking back, leading the press, etc.  Far better than he was the previous season.  I'd argue that Nunez's work rate is really not to be sniffed at - and the amount of time he creates attacks by winning the ball back in and around the centre circle is great.

Got no gripes with his work rate. He's not a patch on Mane in general play though. He creates more chances than Mane, but Mane did much more work for us in the middle third. Our play went through him for a considerable amount of time, when we were the best team in world football. That'll do for me.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

No he isn't?  Understat is not a particularly good xG to use, as if there are two shots (one being saved by the keeper, who parries it to the same player say) they can have an xG of >1 - when it is obvious that you can only score 1 goal - so even if they score it, they have still under-performed the model!  So you in the case of strikers where they put a lot of their shots close enough to the keeper to save, and rebound (as opposed to hitting them high and wide), understat will quite often be significantly higher in the xG.  Whereas fbref, and the like, have him on a much more sensible npxG of 26.3 compared to his 20 goals.

What the stats also tell us is he is a creative *GOD*, this season especially - which none of Gakpo, Diaz or Jota are particularly good at.  So the question then becomes - does his creativity outweight his (for now) poorer finishing, and can his finishing be improved.  My argument (as is many on here) is yes to the first, and probably yes to the second.  He has hit the post 12 times right?  Now some of those were world class keeping; which is unlucky.  But even on those others - hitting the post means you were only 2-3 inches away from scoring - I'd argue that someone who does hit the post a lot is more likely to be able to make that final 1% adjustment and start banging them in, compared to someone who misses more often by not hitting the target.

Hmm, I see where you are coming from, but if a model is totally wiping out a chance then that's probably not a true reflection of someone's finishing ability either is it? Rodrygo last night for example. He still missed that first decent chance. I don't think that should be expunged from the record books just because he was fortunate enough to receive a second chance.

As for creative God, that feels like a stretch to me. He's not in the top 30 players in the league for xA. Mo Salah has been a creative God for us this season, until recent weeks anyway. In the same way that Nunez is underperforming his xG, he is overperforming his xA. Again, this isn't being acknowledged in this thread. That also has less to do with his own ability (or lack thereof) and more about his team-mate's.

[CowboyKangaroo]

You call it consistency; I call it smartarsery and stupidity. If he was still overperforming his xG, those same people would probably still be warning that he's on a hot streak and the end of the world is soon upon us.

But its the same point - if all players will revert to the mean or close to it (in the case of outliers), then it would be foolish to treat the overperformances differently to the under-performances. If he was exceeding his xG currently by the margin he is under-performing, it would not be stupid to say 'hey, his underlying numbers are still fantastic, but we should expect his output to drop in the future'. It would consistent. The only thing which would be stupid is to rationalise away the bad, and accept the good or vice versa.

I'm genuinely lost as to what you see as smart-assery here? Its just people making the same point, whether it is an under-performance or an over-performance.

[LallanaInPyjamas]

But its the same point - if all players will revert to the mean or close to it (in the case of outliers), then it would be foolish to treat the overperformances differently to the under-performances. If he was exceeding his xG currently by the margin he is under-performing, it would not be stupid to say 'hey, his underlying numbers are still fantastic, but we should expect his output to drop in the future'. It would consistent. The only thing which would be stupid is to rationalise away the bad, and accept the good or vice versa.

I'm genuinely lost as to what you see as smart-assery here? Its just people making the same point, whether it is an under-performance or an over-performance.

I think that is exactly what has been happening in this thread. Using one side of the data in a very basic manner, and without acknowledging the other side of it.

[CowboyKangaroo]

I think that is exactly what has been happening in this thread. Using one side of the data in a very basic manner, and without acknowledging the other side of it.

OK - how so? You've just criticised the stats folks for being consistent and describing it as 'smart-assery' so it can't be that.

[Scottymuser]

Hmm, I see where you are coming from, but if a model is totally wiping out a chance then that's probably not a true reflection of someone's finishing ability either is it? Rodrygo last night for example. He still missed that first decent chance. I don't think that should be expunged from the record books just because he was fortunate enough to receive a second chance.

As for creative God, that feels like a stretch to me. He's not in the top 30 players in the league for xA. Mo Salah has been a creative God for us this season, until recent weeks anyway. In the same way that Nunez is underperforming his xG, he is overperforming his xA. Again, this isn't being acknowledged in this thread. That also has less to do with his own ability (or lack thereof) and more about his team-mate's.

He is in the top 30 though he is 23rd for overall xA, and 16th for xA/90.  And he (usually) plays as an out and out striker, not a winger or creative midfielder like most of the others ahead of him.  At least if you do the sensible thing of excluding anyone with fewer than 1000 mins player, as otherwise Dony Van De Beek would be the best player in the league, having an xA of 0.1 from his 3 mins on the pitch.  If you compare him with similarly used strikers, Jesus is next, with an xG of 0.23, then Watkins at 0.2, Haaland at 0.17, etc. 

[PaleBlueDot]

Amazing how the staticos can convince themselves that Lewandowski wasn't a good finisher and Nunez is more creative than Firmino was. I guess you could argue anything with numbers.

Time to exit this thread.

[Wool]

Not starting tonight apparently.

[darragh85]

Amazes me how switched off he is mentally

[Saus76]

Zero impact.

[Lee1-6Liv]

Amazes me how switched off he is mentally

I surprised you're amazed.

[JP!]

Zero impact.

Bit hard when you're just getting the ball hoofed at you after six players have passed it sideways for two minutes.

[sminp]

Zero impact.

Zero service and zero support to be fair to him. Just aimless long balls that found the opposition 9 times out of 10

[Garlic Red]

Are we really at the stage in our supporting lives where we’re going straight after the substitute when the entire team played pretty much shite? Some people need to have a day off.

[Higgins79]

My patience with him has gone. Can’t imagine Edwards is impressed. Sell him now while we might still get decent money and go get Watkins.