Liverpool continued their good form of late with a thumping win over West Ham at Anfield on Wednesday. The Reds headed into the game after back-to-back wins banished the ghosts of the recent surprise loss to Nottingham Forest.
And having hit three against Bournemouth on Saturday, Liverpool were in free-scoring mode once again, this time smashing five past the Hammers.At the weekend, it was Darwin Nunez who stole the show alongside Luis Diaz as the South America pair bagged Liverpool’s three goals between them.
That was Nunez’s first start of the season and after he scored such a lovely goal, the Uruguayan was handed another opportunity to impress by Arne Slot.This time, Nunez left the scoring to his forward teammates.
Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah all got on the scoresheet, with Federico Chiesa – and Nunez – also bagging an assist. And after the game, Slot gave his thoughts on Nunez’s display.Arne Slot impressed with Darwin NunezNunez is always going to be a player who garners headlines for Liverpool.
The 25-year-old is just one of those players.After such a lean run in front of goal at the back end of last season, Nunez was clearly emotional after scoring his first goal of the season against Bournemouth.
As he often tends to score in clumps, the hope had been that the goal could kickstart a good run of form for the No.9.However, Nunez saw his teammates take the plaudits against West Ham, as he endured a surprisingly quiet 90-minute outing.One man who certainly was not quiet was Gakpo.
Having scored a late double to add gloss to the scoreline, Slot was asked about his No.18 by Sky Sports after the game.But although the Liverpool head coach was keen to praise Gakpo, he also paid tribute to the work Nunez did to contribute to the win.
He [Gakpo] deserved that like the others deserved it as well, because I think Darwin worked really hard as well, tried to create,” said Slot.“But it was good to see for Cody, he has such a fantastic shot and we have to bring him into those situations.
How many will Darwin Nunez score this season?After playing six games so far this season, Nunez has just one goal for Liverpool. Granted, most of his appearances have been cameos from the bench, but that is not a great ratio.
By contrast, Gakpo and Jota have scored two and three respectively, while Salah has four and Luis Diaz has five. Already, Nunez is starting to trail behind.Despite that, as Slot says, the Uruguay international is still looking good. There is a certain calmness about Darwin that did not seem present last season.
The early part of the campaign has been about getting minutes into his legs where possible and allowing Nunez to get to grips with what is expected of him in Slot’s system.
It now looks like that has started to really sink in and, as a result, we think we can still expect between 15 and 20 goals from Nunez this term.
