The Uruguayan may be a cult hero on the Kop but it's now painfully obvious that he's not good enough for a title-chasing team
In the dying seconds of Liverpool's rousing 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday, Darwin Nunez threw himself into a tackle on Jeremy Doku, preventing the winger from getting the ball into the Reds' six-yard box.
The Uruguayan then turned to the Kop and let out an almighty roar. The fans lapped it up, and they were singing his praises again after watching him clear the resulting corner and then sprint 50 metres to press City's defenders.
This was the good side of Nunez, the reason why so many Liverpool fans love him; the reason why they've stood by him and continued to believe that his strike-rate will eventually end up matching his work-rate. It's now painfully clear that it won't, though.
Just three nights after Nunez's encouraging cameo against City, he produced an all-too-familiar horror show that had even some of his staunchest supporters questioning their faith in the most frustrating forward in football.
Two sides of Nunez on show at St. James' Park
On August 27, 2003, Nunez came off the bench at St. James' Park with Liverpool a goal and a man down to Newcastle. In the space of just 13 minutes, he turned the Premier League clash on its head with two fantastic finishes.
On that particular afternoon, Nunez looked like the player Liverpool thought they were buying from Benfica. He looked like a £64 million striker.
Upon his return to Tyneside on Wednesday evening, though, Nunez looked like one of the biggest wastes of money in the club's history.
Despite playing the entire game, Nunez had just 20 touches of the ball in the thrilling 3-3 draw with Newcastle - and lost it eight times. Such statistics would be forgivable if he were, like Erling Haaland, taking a significant percentage of the opportunities coming his way - but he's not.
Always arriving too late or going too early
Nunez had two 'big chances' during the game and failed to convert either. The way in which he completely missed the target with one shot from a central position just eight yards out was particularly embarrassing.
At one point, Cody Gakpo also got his head on a cross that Nick Pope completely misreads and nodded the ball across an open goal.
Nunez didn't react in time to apply the finishing touch, which rather neatly summed up his time in the Premier League - a tale of missed opportunities and unnecessary offsides.
When he's not arriving too late, he's going too early. He just can't seem to get things right, at least not for any sustained or meaningful period of time.
Failing to prove his worth
There was a feeling that Nunez would eventually come good. He unquestionably needed time to get to grips with exactly what Jurgen Klopp was asking of him, particularly when it came to Liverpool's pressing game.
There were also regular glimpses of what he was capable of, both in terms of scoring and creating goals. It wasn't just Liverpool fans defending Nunez either; plenty of top Premier League pundits could see his potential too.
After all, despite his erratic form, he was still impacting games here and there. And for all his flaws, he's still been directly involved in 54 goals for Liverpool, netting 35 himself.
However, while there is clearly a good striker in there, Liverpool quite literally can't afford to wait for him to emerge. Nunez has already had nearly two and half years to prove his worth - and the cold hard truth is that he's failed miserably.
The worst finisher in football?
For a forward, Nunez is an atrocious finisher, the worst operating at the very highest level of the game today.
Of the players to have scored more than 30 goals in all competitions across Europe's big five leagues since his arrival at Anfield in the summer of 2022, nobody has a lower shot conversion rate than Nunez (11.48 percent), meaning he essentially needs nine cracks at goal to score one.
Even more damningly, he scores less than a quarter (24.18%) of his 'Big Chances' - which is just abysmal when one considers that anything less than 40% is disappointing for a world-class attacker. For example, Mohamed Salah scores nearly half of the gilt-edged opportunities that come his way (48.65%).
So, it's terrifying for Liverpool fans to think that while the Egyptian's contract expires next summer, Nunez's runs until 2028.
Nunez being carried by Salah
At a time when Salah is making a watertight case for a new deal, Nunez is doing absolutely nothing to convince Arne Slot that he's worth keeping for another year.
Nunez has scored just three goals in 18 appearances this season, 15 of which have been starts. That is an absolutely terrible tally for a striker lining out for the form team in Europe.
Nunez is now well into this third season at Liverpool. He shouldn't just be leading the line to decent effect, he should be pulling his weight in terms of goals. Instead, he's still being carried by Salah.
Nunez is lucky that Slot has - rightly - decided that Gakpo is best deployed in his preferred position on the left flank but he's now certain to lose his starting spot up front as soon as Diogo Jota returns to full fitness, given he's performed so poorly in the Portuguese's injury-enforced absence that Luis Diaz, as pure a winger as you'll ever see, has emerged as a better alternative through the middle.
Just not up to the task
It's easy to understand why Nunez is a cult hero at Anfield. He's Captain Chaos. Nobody has any idea what he's going to do next, which makes him an utterly compelling character. Will he score a stunner? Will he miss an open goal? Will he get himself sent off? It's impossible to know. He may even do all three.
But the novelty of Nunez has undeniably worn off. Liverpool's joker is no longer quite so amusing because the situation has got so serious.
With Arne Slot's side top of both the Premier League and the Champions League, the time for entertainment is over. It's all about efficacy and efficiency now.
To win a major trophy the Reds will require reliability - not unpredictability - and the only thing Nunez can be counted on to do is disappoint.
The incessantly misfiring forward could well get another chance in this weekend's massive Merseyside derby but you just wouldn't back him to take it. And that's the whole point: Liverpool are crying out for a No.9 fit to wear the shirt, not a £64m impact sub.
Some fans still love Nunez. They'll likely stand by him until the end of the season, and maybe he'll go on a hot streak at some point, perhaps even starting on Saturday. But it won't last. It never does. And everyone should know that by now.
It's all well and good praising Nunez's passion and industry. But simply cutting out crosses just isn't good enough anymore. Liverpool needs a striker capable of converting them. And Nunez clearly isn't up to the task.
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