Darwin Nunez could hardly keep his emotions in check by the time he finished his celebration. And all things considered, it was no surprise.
After the Uruguayan was resigned to a bit-part role in the early weeks of the Arne Slot era – tallying just 82 minutes of action across four substitute appearances – his third, and undoubtedly most important, campaign at Anfield took off in usual headline-grabbing fashion on Saturday afternoon.
As has become a common affair since he arrived in a £64m deal from Benfica two years ago, Nunez’s performance at the weekend – good, bad or indifferent – was guaranteed to have a significant bearing on how Sunday’s sports pages up and down the country would look.
Perhaps, then, the idea of each of his outings in a red shirt receiving abnormal levels of scrutiny explains why he cut such an emotional figure after unleashing a spectacular left-footed curling effort past Bournemouth’s Kepa Arrizabalaga. From Nunez’s point of view, this, his first audition for a starting place in Slot’s starting XI, was just how he would have dreamt it.
Indeed, there was plenty to like about the Uruguayan’s performance before he was replaced in the 72nd minute, as he exhibited a mature understanding of what is required of Liverpool’s No.9, both in and out of possession. Throughout the afternoon, Nunez worked in tandem with Luis Diaz and, in particular, Mohamed Salah to stretch the Cherries’ defence.
And it was this slick, quick thinking that allowed him to pounce on the hesitancy of Illia Zabarnyi and Julian Araujo to flick the ball onto Salah and start a swift breakaway at the end of the first half. The Egyptian’s through-ball required Nunez to turn on the afterburners before he arrived at the corner of the box, composed himself, shifted the ball onto his weaker left foot and curled home from a seemingly improbable angle.
“My first instinct when he shot, I said, ‘Why does he shoot? Why don’t you keep on dribbling?’ Because he made the ball free and I think the defender was on the ground,” joked Slot post-match. “But then there was a fraction of a second later when I saw the ball went in off the post and I was like, ‘OK, maybe you are a better football player than I was in the past!’ [A] good choice of him.”
If Nunez’s first goal of the season could only render a wry smile from Slot on the touchline, then it was the forward’s endeavour off-the-ball that left the Dutchman beaming from ear to ear at the end of the afternoon as the Reds recorded a fourth win and clean sheet of the Premier League season.
In fact, only Alexis Mac Allister (6) attempted more tackles than Nunez (4) against Bournemouth, with three of those efforts taking place in the defensive third as the Uruguayan offered support for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konate.
That in itself is quite the contrast to the position Nunez was in at the end of his first season on Merseyside: made to watch Liverpool’s late-season charge for Champions League qualification from the substitutes’ bench as Jurgen Klopp cited his counter-pressing as a sticking point.
On Saturday afternoon, though, Slot was keen to highlight Nunez’s contribution to Liverpool’s clean sheet and ensure that the following day’s columns tasked with examining the forward’s performance were aware of just how impressive his performance audition was.
“Of course, I play a striker because I like him to score goals, I play a winger because I like them to assist or to score goals. Because if you want to win a game, you need to score goals,” added Slot. “But it also helps if you keep a clean sheet. We just spoke about the lead-up to both goals, Ibou was involved in this – but keeping a clean sheet, Darwin is also involved in this because of the reasons you just told me.
“So first and foremost, they have to work really hard for the team. In the beginning of the season it was Mo who made the difference and with Lucho and then it was Cody [Gakpo] and Diogo [Jota] who’s been involved in goals – and today it was Lucho and Darwin. That’s all we want to see.”
There is no denying that it has been a difficult few years for Nunez since his potential club-record transfer in June 2022. But if his chaotic-less showing is anything to go by, then Slot’s decision to use the first weeks of the season to ensure the forward is familiarised with his methods appears to have done the trick.
“For him, coming into a club like Liverpool with the price tag there is always going to be pressure to produce week in, week out and he is trying to do that but it is not always that easy,” said Virgil van Dijk. “Now it is time for him to stay calm and I think, in my opinion, he has been doing that much better and the manager is busy with him a lot and us as players and we just have to keep him close to us and keep going.
