Jurgen Klopp may try Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez as a strike partnership for Liverpool. Here’s how it could work.
Jurgen Klopp has a strange problem at Liverpool. Both Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah have looked great in recent weeks, scoring brilliant goals and looking unstoppable.
But both are doing it in the same position. Nunez’s goals are all coming as a central striker, while Salah’s have, too. The Egyptian looks isolated on the right wing, unable to get into games. His six-minute hat-trick as a central striker against Rangers showed his potential in the middle, though. His winner against Manchester City then backed up the idea that he should play there.
Not to mention that his record there is phenomenal.
In any other season, this problem would be near-impossible to solve. How could you play both through the middle in a 4-3-3? Klopp changed to a 4-4-2 this month, however, and that opens the door for something special.
The boss talked openly after the win over West Ham United about the pair being a partnership. It would be ‘high speed’, as he says, but could also be absolutely unstoppable.
A Salah and Nunez partnership
The big problem with Salah and Nunez both playing through the middle is that they want to do the same thing. Each plan on running in behind, with a strike-partner pulling covering defenders away and allowing them to isolate their marker.
That means they typically play better with someone like Roberto Firmino. Firmino also does the bit neither forward wants to do – dropping between the lines to receive the ball out of midfield.
Salah and Nunez do have something that works, though. Both like to start centrally but drift wider to attack the channels. Conveniently, they want to attack opposite channels, with Nunez drifting left and Salah right.
That’s something Liverpool can work with. It would usually be complicated by the winger on either flank also wanting to run into that space but with Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota both out, there’s an opportunity to try something.
The Reds’ other options on the flanks are Harvey Elliott, Fabio Carvalho, and Curtis Jones. They’re all players who don’t attack those channels and instead want to drift inside between the lines and collect the ball on the turn. In other words, they’ll do that job Liverpool otherwise rely on Firmino to do.
This is how Klopp can make it work. Pace on the wings isn’t necessary with both Salah and Nunez in the side – they offer an incredible amount of it. They’d constantly offer outballs, too, and can certainly occupy defenders. In fact, they’re each capable of occupying both centre-backs on their own, let alone with two of them out there.
Neither would have to drop deep if there are attacking midfielder on the flanks, while they should naturally create space for one another as they drift in opposite directions.
They could be a front-two reminiscent of Luis Suárez and Daniel Sturridge. Two players who were happy to drift, happy to provide for one another, while offering slightly different physical traits that made the pairing unstoppable.
In this current 4-4-2, with the players currently available, we think Klopp can make something similar work with Salah and Nunez.
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