Darwin Nunez was an unused substitute in Liverpool’s first Premier League match under manager Arne Slot, and new statistics on the Uruguayan’s recruitment shows a possibly difficult future, despite the new manager’s assurances of his value.
Nunez joined Liverpool from Benfica in June 2022 for up to £85 million. Jurgen Klopp, the forward’s long-time boss, was largely responsible for the deal after being impressed by his exploits against the Reds in the Champions League.
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Since his arrival, the 25-year-old has scored 33 goals in 96 games across all competitions. Last season, he scored 11 Premier League goals and assisted eight more as Liverpool finished third.
Despite this, Nunez became disillusioned with the German last season after being dropped from the starting lineup. Slot, aware of Nunez’s anguish, called him upon his arrival to convince the forward that he would play an important role in the club’s transition.
However, in Ian Graham’s new book How to Win the Premier League, Liverpool’s former head of research argues Nunez’s recruiting drifted away from the data-led recruitment methodology that contributed to the club’s success, raising questions about how Nunez can best operate at the club in thefuture.
“Nunez played brilliantly against Liverpool, and that has an effect on people,” the Welshman told The Athletic. “It didn’t do him any harm to become a Liverpool player. The difficulty with Nunez was that he was a very different type of player to (Roberto) Firmino. My questions were: ‘Are we going to change our style or formation for him?’ Is he a good enough player that it might be worth making those changes?’ It was something we had resisted for many years.
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