Liverpool have their own Haaland, who is already revealing signs of Salah’s best season
Jurgen Klopp has a player unlike any other striker and he could use that to alleviate Liverpool’s front three dilemma.
Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo replace Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez of Liverpool during the Premier League match between Liverpool FC and West Ham United at Anfield on September 24, 2023 in Liverpool, England. Jurgen Klopp has five excellent strikers, but Darwin Núñez stands out in one important way
What is most important for a leader in team composition? Do they want different abilities and options to choose where they start to exploit the weaknesses of the opposition? Or did they prefer to keep identity lists where they could trade one player for another without losing team effectiveness? The answer is inevitably, a bit of both would be a good starting point. For Jürgen Klopp and his front three, that was not a problem for five seasons. That’s pretty remarkable when you think about it.
In the summer of 2017-2022, Liverpool could play with Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah in every match. They were almost always playable, worked brilliantly as a trio, and – apart from the merits of cult hero Divock Or – there was no one waiting in the wings who deserved to be left out. In the 2023/24 season, the Reds do not have an established trio at the head of the team. The club will do well facing the Salah-Firmino-Mané triumvirate. But it currently has five strikers of largely equal caliber to provide Klopp with a potential 10-man trio without falling short of standard.
Of course, that assumes Salah might not play, and history shows that’s unlikely. Liverpool have made 236 Premier League appearances since joining and the Egyptian has failed to make just 10 appearances. If it weren’t for the mid-season Africa Cup of Nations, that number would be even lower. However, Klopp is left with six possible forward combinations on the other two wings. A look at the most important underlying metric for forwards (shots) shows how Darwin Núñez differs from his position mates.
The graphic from the tweet above highlights the difference between the former Benfica man and the other four strikers at Klopp’s disposal. The x-axis shows the hits per 90 minutes of this season’s premier league players, the y-axis shows their goals per 90 minutes. With no names shown, the quintet of red forwards are connected by a line. The trio of Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota and Salah are only 0.11 shots away from 90, while Luis Díaz is only two behind the latter. Klopp could have picked any three of those four and certainly got nine shots from them.
But then look at Núñez, a shooting star on the fringes of this constellation, averaging 4.9 shots per 90 this season (and the closest to him is Newcastle’s Callum Wilson, if you’re wondering). With Erling Haaland last seen at this pace in the shallow waters of the Austrian Bundesliga, Núñez’s numbers will almost inevitably drop as he sees more game time this season. But Núñez’s strikeout rate has now increased year-over-year in all five campaigns for which FBRef has data. His chance quality (non-penalty expected goals per shot) has dropped from 0.14 in 2022/23 to 0.16 this season as well, which is no small feat when shots are also on the rise. Defining Liverpool’s top three as the three strikers with the most minutes over the last seven seasons reveals something else interesting. In the 2023/24 season, the trio would currently be Díaz, Núñez and Salah, with the Uruguayans shooting 45.6 percent inside their 90. The closest player to that mark was Salah in his debut campaign (44.1), a season in which he hit 32 league goals and 44 in all competitions. If he plays less and blows hot and cold in front of goal, it would be ridiculous to expect Núñez to put up similar numbers. But the data behind him suggests he could have a similar impact if given the chance. Perhaps Klopp’s three-way selection dilemma should now be narrowed down to choosing one of three players fighting for one place in the squad.