Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez should be disappointed with his display against Bayern Munich yesterday.
That’s the view of former Liverpool midfielder Charlie Adam, who believes that Nunez should have buried a couple of decent-looking chances against the Germans.
Covering the game as a pundit for LFCTV, Adam said the Uruguayan should have done better with some opportunities. The 37-year-old pointed out a missed header from an inviting Andy Robertson cross as a particularly poor miss.
“I think as a proper number nine for Liverpool, you have got to score goals. You need to take these chances. I think he [Nunez] has to at least hit the target,” said the pundit. “It’s a wonderful delivery from Robertson, and at least hit the target and make the keeper work, he’ll be disappointed with that.
“He had a couple of chances second half where if it was a natural number nine he would score the goals. You can’t fault his work rate, he’ll get chances.”
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Nunez fires first pre-season blank
So far this pre-season, Nunez has been absolutely on fire. Up until yesterday, the 24-year-old had scored in each of Liverpool’s three games so far. Three matches, four goals, you can’t say fairer than that.
But Adam is right, Darwin should really have extended that run into yesterday’s game as well.
The missed header perhaps wasn’t even his best chance of the night. He also slotted a one-on-one with Sven Ulrich straight at the Munich back-up ‘keeper.
As Adam also points out though, it is still encouraging to see Nunez get himself into these positions. Chances will inevitably end up coming his way.
That was certainly the case last season, but in some ways this magnetism to chances perhaps ended up costing the striker his confidence.
There’s only so long you can go missing guilt-edged opportunities. If you squander one too many, supporters and maybe even teammates will start to get on your back.
In Nunez’s case, that is yet to happen. There’s still a justified belief that he will come good and iron out his rawness. During this summer, there have been signs that that is starting to happen. Yesterday was a slight misstep in that regard, but all strikers miss these chances from time to time. He’ll bury the next one.