After a difficult 2024/25 season to date, Darwin Nunez rose to the occasion when Liverpool needed him most in their 2-0 win at Brentford. David Segar of Opta Analyst assesses whether those goals can prove to be a turning point for the Uruguayan striker .
Signed by Liverpool for a potential club-record fee of up to £85million in the summer of 2022, fresh off a season in which he scored 34 goals in 41 games in all competitions for Benfica, and 26 in 28 Primeira Liga games, Nunez's two and a half years at Anfield have featured plenty of highs and lows.
He’s only scored five more goals for the Reds than he managed in his final season alone in Lisbon. With 123 games played for Liverpool (73 starts), Nunez has 39 goals.
Heading into last weekend, Nunez only had four goals this season in 26 games (14 starts) and murmurs were getting louder about whether his time at Liverpool might be coming to an end, despite the team sitting top of the Premier League and also first in the group phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Diogo Jota has generally been preferred by Arne Slot at the front of his attack when fit, while even winger Luis Diaz has been selected ahead of him in that role in recent weeks.
However, Slot still backed Nunez prior to the game, and turned to him in the 65th minute at the Gtech Community Stadium as Liverpool struggled to break down a resolute Brentford.
Slot’s side huffed and puffed, entering stoppage time still at 0-0 after failing to score from a remarkable 35 shots to that point. Then Nunez struck, sending the travelling fans into ecstasy. Trent Alexander-Arnold managed to find the Uruguayan with a low cross at the second time of asking, and Nunez slotted instinctively from close range.
The proverbial "limbs" ensued in the away end and Nunez was suddenly the hero of the hour. After disappointing draws with Manchester United and Nottingham Forest, a win felt important for Liverpool, and thanks to Nunez, they got it.
It was appropriate that the game was in London, as like their famous buses, two came along at once for Nunez. Fellow substitutes Federico Chiesa and Harvey Elliott combined before the latter fed Nunez, who cut inside the last defender and slammed in a second goal to seal the points for his team.
He was serenaded by the chant from the away end of “Nunez! Nunez! Nunez!” at the end of the game, with the 25-year-old giving the impression that a big weight had been lifted from his shoulders. These were his first Premier League goals since early November, and his first away from home in the league since March 2024, when he headed in an equally dramatic winner at Forest in the ninth minute of stoppage time.
In fact, having also struck two late goals at Newcastle United to give Liverpool a win in August 2023, no one in Premier League history has scored more winning goals in second-half stoppage time in away games than Nunez.
He has also now scored the joint-second most 90+ minute goals in the Premier League for Liverpool, level with Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres on five and only trailing the six of Sadio Mane. It’s an impressive ratio for someone who has only scored 24 goals in the competition.
Since his arrival in 2022, Nunez also has the most goal involvements in the Premier League from the bench with 11 (seven goals and four assists).
Most PL substitute goal involvements since Aug 2022
| Player | Sub G+A | Sub goals | Sub assists |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darwin Nunez | 11 | 7 | 4 |
| Callum Wilson | 9 | 7 | 2 |
| Harvey Barnes | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Jhon Duran | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Alejandro Garnacho | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| Harry Wilson | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| Richarlison | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| Brennan Johnson | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| Leon Bailey | 8 | 3 | 5 |
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Nunez explained his emotions around his recent difficulties. He said: “I think you have to stay mentally strong, never give up. There are moments that are very difficult for us players – for me, it’s right now, but I never throw the towel in.
“I think the work that I do on the pitch to help the team to defend as well, I think I’ve always done it well. But I haven’t scored goals, and I know people look at that: the striker has to score goals.
“The truth is that I’m going through a rough patch and like I said before, I always stay focused on my job and I’m always going to give everything for Liverpool. It’s really important to keep my head up and to always say, ‘OK, I’ve got to work because I need to improve.’
“And I stay strong with this mentality and with the support of my family and of course the fans, who are incredible… Now I have to keep on working. These two goals will definitely help to build my confidence.”
A lack of confidence has often been cited as the reason for Nunez's struggles in England. Despite arriving off the back of a season in which he boasted a shot conversion rate of 30.6 per cent for Benfica in the Primeira Liga, he found finishing a lot harder at his new club.
In his debut campaign, Nunez only scored from 12.7 per cent of his shots in all competitions, while that went down to 11.0 per cent last season, and has only crept up to 11.8 per cent this season after his two goals at Brentford.
By comparison, every other Liverpool forward to play at least 200 minutes this season has at least a 19.4 per cent shot conversion rate, though it should be mentioned that his rate rises to 16.0 per cent when just taking into account Premier League games.
As you can see from his Expected Goals (xG) map for Liverpool below, Nunez has scored his 39 goals from almost 51 xG. If he’d even come close to matching his xG then you’d fancy public opinion on him would be significantly different.
Nunez's xG map
Nunez's goal return hasn’t been terrible, though. He scored 15 goals in all competitions in his first campaign at Liverpool, and a further 18 goals along with 13 assists in 2023/24. The criticism came because it felt like he should be scoring more considering the chances he was getting, as his higher xG suggests. However, some did give Nunez the benefit of the doubt that he would eventually rediscover his scoring form from Portugal because he was forever getting chances.
No player in the Premier League had as many as his 4.5 shots per 90 minutes (minimum 1,000 minutes played) in 2022/23, which was the case again last season as he upped his shot rate to 4.8 per 90. That sheer volume of shots meant that even with a poor conversion rate, Nunez was still finding the net relatively regularly. If he could improve his finishing, the sky could be the limit.
However, what few people saw coming was that Nunez's shot volume would go down before his conversion rate went up. In Jurgen Klopp’s system, he had chances galore. In Slot’s set-up, though, the Uruguayan simply isn’t as involved. He’s only had 2.9 shots per 90 in the Premier League this season, with 29 players (min. 500 minutes) averaging more, including four of his Liverpool team-mates (Diaz, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and Jota).
Nunez's PL shooting stats per 90
| Season | Total shots | Shots on target | xG | Shot conversion % | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 4.45 | 1.96 | 0.61 | 10.71% | 0.48 |
| 2023/24 | 4.75 | 2.02 | 0.72 | 10.19% | 0.48 |
| 2024/25 | 2.89 | 1.16 | 0.38 | 16.00% | 0.46 |
It’s not that he’s turning into a more creative player either. Having created 1.2 chances per 90 for Liverpool in 2022/23, that went up to 1.7 per 90 last season as his on-pitch relationship with Salah began to thrive. However, in Slot’s team, his productivity has gone down to 0.7 chances created per 90.
In terms of attacking sequence involvements, he has the lowest per 90 of any of Liverpool’s forwards to have played at least 360 minutes in all competitions (5.1).
Slot has continued to defend the player, though, insisting he has an “impact”. In mid-December, the Liverpool boss said of his striker: “If you only look at goals, he hasn’t scored the amount of goals that he wants to score, or we want a No 9 to score, but he does have impact in his work rate. He’s part of a team that scores a lot of goals and is winning a lot.
“Of course, as a No 9 you want to score more goals and that’s definitely what he wants as well. But I’m not only judging Mohamed Salah on his goals and Darwin on his goals – I also judge them on their work rate and what they bring to the team.”
And when you look at some of his other numbers, you can see what Slot means. One area Nunez has improved under the Dutchman is in his work off the ball.
In the Premier League this season, Nunez is averaging 1.9 tackles per 90, having not averaged more than 1.0 per 90 in his last two seasons, while he’s winning possession 3.2 times per 90, up from a high at Liverpool of 2.5 last season.
He is also showing up in terms of pressures. His 35.1 pressures per 90 is comfortably his highest for the club, as are his distance closed from pressures (338.5 metres per 90) and pressures resulting in a turnover per 90 (5.0).
Nunez's PL off-the-ball stats per 90
| Statistic | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tackles | 0.58 | 0.97 | 1.85 |
| Possession won | 2.33 | 2.46 | 3.12 |
| Pressures | 19.07 | 24.15 | 35.05 |
| Pressure distance closed (m) | 164.18 | 224.48 | 338.48 |
| Pressure = Turnover | 2.70 | 3.39 | 4.97 |
He is making the most tackles and pressures resulting in a turnover per 90 of any Liverpool forward, while only Jota (41.8) has more pressures per 90 and distance closed from pressures (390.0m).
As you can see from his heat maps below comparing last season to this, Nunez is having more involvement in deeper areas, rather than just staying up top and waiting for his chances, still favouring the left side slightly but also having more of his touches inside his own half.
Nunez open-play touch map 23/24
Nunez open-play touch map 24/25
That said, he is making fewer touches overall. Nunez averaged around 36.8 touches per 90 in the Premier League under Klopp, but is having only 30.2 this season.
Slot doubled down on his praise for the player after Saturday’s win, saying at his press conference: “[A reporter] asked me similar things before the game about Darwin and I didn’t agree then that he’s not having a good season. I think he’s having a good season, where he scores goals, he works very hard for the team, he assists. But he’s in competition with a lot of good players, so that’s why he’s not every single game on the pitch.
“But I’m very happy with him – not only because he scored today two goals but that, of course, helps – but I’m very happy with the other performances he put in for us as well.”
It would be very kneejerk to suggest that Nunez has silenced his critics. He still has just six goals in 27 games this season, and as the Newcastle game last season showed, scoring two late goals is not necessarily a sign that things have clicked for him. He could just as easily start against Lille in the Champions League on Tuesday and miss 10 chances.
But going into Saturday’s game, the doubts were getting so loud that it was feeling a near certainty that Liverpool and Nunez would part ways at the end of this season. That could still end up being the case, but this may also be the catalyst for the player showing he still has a big part to play in the club’s future hunt for trophies this season and beyond.
He might not start every game, but with Jota struggling to stay fit and plenty of games to come this season, Nunez can still play a decisive role as Liverpool try to add to the club’s already impressive silverware collection.
It’s notable that of the 14 games Nunez has started this season, Liverpool have won 12, drawn two and lost none (85.7 per cent win percentage), averaging 2.5 goals a game, 0.2 more than the 18 games when he hasn’t started (2.3), of which they’ve won 13, drawn three and lost two (72.2 per cent win percentage). That’s not a vast difference, but it shows that not only does Liverpool not generally do worse when he starts, they are actually marginally more efficient.
Brentford was one good ending to a game, and Nunez has plenty still to do to – as his former manager would have said – turn doubters into believers, but it’s a start.
Whether Nunez can push on from here remains to be seen, but if the Uruguayan can find a hot run of form for Liverpool, it would be a massive fillip for the Reds.
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