Darwin Núñez may not have scored in Liverpool’s Merseyside Derby victory over Everton on Monday night, but he did something that suggests he could soon explode.
There was a moment, 87 minutes into Liverpool’s Premier League clash with Manchester City back in October, when Darwin Núñez led a three-man counter-attack.
With only Bernardo Silva back for the visitors and Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah racing forward alongside Núñez, Liverpool, leading 1-0, had a glorious chance to seal the three points.
But rather than slipping Salah or Jota through for what should have been an easy finish, Núñez inexplicably cut inside and tried to shoot from the edge of the penalty area, with Bernardo making the block.
There were exasperated groans all around Anfield and, had Manchester City found an equalizer, Núñez would have been criticized much more heavily for a baffling piece of play. Whether it was down to a lack of awareness or pure self-interest, it showed that the 23-year-old was not thinking clearly.
But on Monday night, he executed a similar situation perfectly.
After James Tarkowski hit the post and Dwight McNeil’s shot deflected out to Núñez, he purposefully poked the ball to Salah for a one-two.
Thus the firing gun had sounded and Liverpool’s front three were surging — Núñez in possession on the left, Salah through the middle and Cody Gakpo on the right.
Idrissa Gueye fought to keep up with the rapid Uruguayan while Vitalii Mykolenko was dragged across, effectively taking him out of the game.
It was, to all intents and purposes, another three-versus-one situation on the counter-attack.
In the kind of scenario where he’s fluffed his lines all too often, most notably against Manchester City, Núñez cushioned a perfect pass into the path of Salah at the ideal moment, giving him the simple task of prodding into a net that Jordan Pickford had left unguarded.
Here, Núñez displayed the missing ingredient — composure. All too often, he’s been guided by a rush of blood to the head in the final third. That’s a big part of the reason why he’s missed a Premier League-high 16 big chances already this season.
But there’s been predominantly been confidence among supporters that he’ll add a certain coolness to his game, and then his output will explode.
It’s a belief that’s shared in the dressing room at Liverpool, at least based on comments from Salah after the match on Monday.
“This guy is going to score a lot of goals,” the Egyptian said . “Trust me.”
The key, of course, is for Núñez to be composed when he’s in front of goal himself. He will ultimately be judged on how regularly he finds the net.
But decision-making and calmness also come into play in the creative side of the game, particularly when he’s deployed on the left side of the attack rather than through the center.
In that role, he hasn’t been getting the same volume of high-quality chances, so he has to find other ways to contribute.
He may not have been the scorer on Monday night but he provided the moment of quality Liverpool sorely needed after a full-blooded but ragged 35 minutes, not just with his assist but also with the one-two earlier in the move.
In doing so, he displayed a quality that should enable him to become prolific, and make Salah’s ‘promise’ come true.
