‘Incredible’ Liverpool player could well swap positions with £37m teammate in 2023 – opinion

Add as preferred source on Google

Darwin Nunez could swap positions with one Liverpool teammate in 2023. The Uruguayan has the ability to do it.

2023 will be a massive year for Liverpool. The time has come, after all, to make fundamental changes to the team and we fully expect midfielders to arrive next year. Potentially for enormous fees.

Be it Jude Bellingham and/or someone else, the team will change. Jurgen Klopp will have to shuffle things around and we don’t think incoming players are the only ones who will feel the effects of that.

We also expect the attack to face a change as Klopp tries to make things work. Principally, we think Darwin Nunez could change positions with Luis Díaz.

Darwin Nunez and Luis Díaz to swap positions

Nunez hasn’t fit in perfectly at Liverpool so far. Tactically, anyway – he’s been amazing in every other regard, leading to Robbie Fowler calling him ‘incredible’. But the Reds don’t quite flow as well as they’d like to with the Uruguayan in the striker role.

He doesn’t link play as well as the Reds are used to. The 23-year-old also lacks control in tight spaces on the edge of the box or with defenders swarming him.

Instead, the team’s best performances have come with Roberto Firmino centrally and Nunez out wide on the left. That allows the latter to have a bit more space, and drifting wide means he can isolate defenders – and no one can defend him one v onek. Nunez is too quick, too strong, and too direct for anyone to stop him on their own.

But that creates a problem. Díaz is a world-class left-winger and he’s been sensational since his £37m arrival at Anfield. Liverpool can’t exactly use both out there.

Díaz, though, may have a future through the middle. The Athletic reported right after his arrival that Liverpool saw a future for him as a centre-forward, and we wonder if he’s got the tools to replace Firmino there.

The Colombian does have the close control, does like to drop deep, and his pressing may be even more effective as a striker. It would be a massive call from Klopp, given Nunez arrived for a massive fee just last summer to play as a striker.

But we think the signs point to this change working out. Nunez can be a dominant threat as a direct left-winger, while Díaz has all the tools to be the next great False 9.