Darwin Nunez question remains unanswered as Liverpool gamble nears end of debut campaign

LIVERPOOL 1-0 BRENTFORD: Mo Salah’s first half goal was enough for Liverpool’s second straight 1-0 win on what turned into a frustrating evening for their big summer signing

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Liverpool V Brentford: Pictures

The suggestions of late have been that Darwin Nunez is struggling to pick up any instructions from Jurgen Klopp, let alone the thinly veiled ones.

As he heads toward the end of his first season in English football, the word is that the Uruguayan is still getting to grips with the English language as he strives to understand just what is being asked of him in Klopp’s evolving team.

The fact that those instructions will have changed during this disjointed season can’t have helped, but Klopp spelled out the gist of them during a recent press conference.

“The ticket into this team must be, and will definitely be again, counter-pressing. That’s how everything started,” he said prior to the recent visit of Nottingham Forest, which would prove to be the third of five successive matches that Nunez began on the bench.

“I wouldn’t say we lost it a little bit out of eyesight, but we have so many games from us that I didn’t like that. That’s a pretty strict thing.

“All five [attackers] now available can do that pretty well, but if you do it in the game you play, you have a good chance to start again. That’s it.”

The fact that Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota were all starting games in this run and Nunez wasn’t told you everything you needed to know about where Klopp saw the pressing tendencies of his forward players, but the former Benfica man has been given two west London reprieves in the past week, starting at home to Fulham and then again here against Brentford.

Nunez was frustrated throughout his 65 minutes on the pitch (

Image:

Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

His midweek display was hardly vintage, but then a) neither was Liverpool’s, and b) Nunez did force the game’s only goal with a determined bit of pressing, albeit one that had been conjured up out of nowhere.

Handed his second opportunity of the week, this was a chance to intelligently lead the Liverpool line which featured Salah and Jota playing either side of him and then Gakpo, who has been so impressive through the middle, a little deeper.

As ever with Nunez though, we got a little bit of everything.

He was in the thick of the action from the beginning as all three of his fellow ‘forwards’ – although Gakpo’s position was up for debate – played into him, and he would first get a sight of goal from a Salah cross he just missed.

The Uruguayan remained willing to influence the game (

Image:

AFP via Getty Images)

Soon came the type of situation that we’ve often seen him in as he raced onto a Fabinho through ball only to hesitate before the flag went up, and he then let the ball slip from his control following a fine Trent Alexander-Arnold pass. Again, the actions seemed to be going on around the Uruguayan as he struggled to make the decisive impact on them.

He still has a role to play as part of this attack though, as shown when he shifted to the left for the start of the second half and he dovetailed well with Andy Robertson and Curtis Jones. Once more there was furious amounts of effort and endeavour, but it all seemed to be channelled into personal battles as he broke into that trademark gallop, often moving a bit too fast for his own good, and certainly for the game’s.

His game would be over in the 65th minute when he was replaced by Diaz to the familiar sounds of the ‘s*** Andy Carroll’ jibe from the Brentford fans.

He’s not that, he is much more. But there is still so much work to do.