The £85m Liverpool player who is much, much better than you might think

Darwin Nunez; purveyor of chaos, sketcher of horses, waster of golden opportunities. When the dust (and sky blue confetti) settles on this frantic Premier League title race, Liverpool will perhaps look back ruefully on their squandered chance to send Jurgen Klopp off into the sunset on the back of a fairytale ending and wonder what might have been if they had somebody a touch more - how to put this - ‘orthodox’ at the point of attack.

Would they, for instance, have tucked away one or two of a cavalcade of openings against Crystal Palace at Anfield on Sunday afternoon and kept themselves at the forefront of a jostling pack near the peak of the table? Would any number of pivotal passes have been slotted deftly through into the verdant expanses of the final third rather than cannoning off the shins of a covering last man? Would it, in other words, have made any difference whatsoever?

Jose Enrique, former Liverpool defender, seems to think so. Speaking recently, he said: “They [Liverpool] are simply missing too many chances. It is not possible to win the Premier League when you miss as many chances as they do, especially when you aren’t too strong defensively and concede a lot of chances at your own end. Darwin Nunez is simply not at the required level and he never has been… He is a good player but he is not a Liverpool number nine.” 

There are plenty of armchair pundits, festering away online, who would agree with the Spaniard. Nunez tends to be a divisive figure, and one with no shortage of detractors and naysayers nipping at his ankles on a weekly basis. Clips of his mishaps are frequently snipped up and blasted into virality, and even his biggest advocates would have to admit that there is a certain jumbled unreliability to his game.

At a glance, the stats would seem to support the doubters too. Nunez has scored a total of 11 Premier League goals this season from an xG of 16.99, according to Whoscored, making him the second most wasteful finisher in the top flight, with Everton striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin the only player eclipsing him. And so, there we have it, Nunez is useless; case closed, cheers for reading, see you next time.

Except, things are never quite that black and white, are they? For instance, Nunez may be second in the long list of the Premier League’s xG debauchees, but just behind him, in third, is Manchester City juggernaut Erling Haaland - the current joint top scorer in the division. Unsurprisingly, few tend to bring up his statistically provable imprudence. It’s almost as if xG does not have to represent the be all and end all.

And that’s especially true when you start to consider the other contributions that Nunez makes to this Liverpool side. Across the entirety of Europe’s traditional top five leagues, and taken in direct comparison to other players who line up in his position, the Uruguayan sits in 88th percentile for shot-creating actions, the 87th percentile for progressive carries, and the 96th percentile for assists. There’s more too; Nunez also forces his way into the 98th percentile for touches in the opposition’s penalty area, and the 95th percentile for progressive passes received.

But in the simplest of terms, what does this all mean? Well, it illustrates the extent to which Nunez brings those around him into the game, as well as emphasising just how effective he is at carrying his team forward, and how much his colleagues trust him as a linking fulcrum capable of holding things up in key areas. It also, almost certainly, means that he is not anywhere near as bad as some casual observers would have you believe he is.