One way or another, Darwin Núñez is ultimately going to leave a lot of people looking very silly indeed. Liverpool will be hoping it is the critics who end up with egg on their face — and that was the way the wind was blowing against Bournemouth, where he left his mark on the game with an accomplished brace.
After a first half where Liverpool had taken its time growing into the match, Núñez ensured the best possible start to the second period. Nobody would have known from his finish that he had been having any problems in front of goal; after some lovely quick football between Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota, the Uruguayan slotted the ball first-time beyond Neto in goal.
His second was nicely taken too. After a Jota brace had made the result safe, Núñez made it emphatic, plucking a Joe Gomez pass from the air and burying that with another healthy dose of conviction and poise.
Watching it, though it was great to see Núñez finally get some reward for all of the good things he does every time he plays, I cannot say I felt any confidence that this would kick-start a run of goalscoring form. The perception of his whole Liverpool career to date is that it has been stop-start — with the excitement of an earlier brace, this one against Newcastle, failing to turn into a prolonged prolific sequence.
But after the match, I was confronted with a statistic (courtesy of Opta’s Michael Reid on X). With his two goals against Bournemouth, Núñez moved on to 10 goals and 10 assists for the season in all competitions. Only three Liverpool players have ever done so in fewer games in the Premier League era: Steven Gerrard (twice), Luis Suárez and Mohamed Salah.
That contextualizes Núñez’s apparent struggles. There is no getting away from the fact that he is missing a lot of chances, but whether it is through goals or assists, only very few Liverpool players have ever been so reliably consistent when it comes to attacking output over the first 30 or so games of a campaign.
Gerrard, Salah and Suárez is enviable company for any Liverpool player to be keeping. Being right up there with his compatriot is a particularly notable feather in Núñez’s cap.
After all, the comparison to Suárez was inevitable from the moment Núñez signed for Liverpool. Between that and the parallels with Erling Haaland, signed by Manchester City in the same summer, the 24-year-old has been saddled with a huge burden.
These are not easy players with whom to keep pace. And if you’d asked me a few hours ago, I would have said that Núñez hasn’t yet got anywhere near doing that, even though his massive potential is undeniable.
But it’s unfair to keep talking about him purely in terms of the potential for an explosion. More goals may come — I think ultimately they still have to — but Núñez is already making a measurable positive impact on this Liverpool team.
And the same numbers that forecast an uptick in his fortunes in front of goal also suggest there is nothing fortuitous about his healthy assists tally. That figure is fickle in that it relies on the finishing of teammates, but Núñez is also in the 98th percentile of forwards in Europe’s top five leagues when it comes to expected assists (FBref) — he is laying on a huge volume of chances, which are being converted at around the expected rate.
When Núñez plays for Liverpool, goals happen. He is not always scoring them. He isn’t even always getting the assist, with his excellent work in the build-up to Jota’s first strike against Bournemouth one phase too early to earn the credit. But one way or another, he is exerting the kind of attacking influence that made the likes of Suárez so revered on the Kop. So while I will keep being excited about his potential, it’s time to appreciate a little more what he is doing right now.
