During Jurgen Klopp’s tenure at Liverpool, his team have been labelled as ‘mentality monsters’ numerous times as they chased domestic and continental glory.
The tag was coined during the initial era of success when the Reds had taken Manchester City all the way in the 2018-19 Premier League title race, before winning the Champions League.
On route to the showcase in Madrid, Anfield had witnessed a stunning comeback from a 3-0 first-leg deficit against Barcelona, which epitomised the ‘never give up’ attitude that adorned the injured Mohamed Salah’s t-shirt, as he took his seat to watch on from the stands.
The label was then solidified as the club picked themselves up from the devastation of losing out on the previous season’s title, winning the 2019-20 crown at a canter, their first in 30 years, a historic moment.
They would lose out by a single point in another title race in the 2021/22 season, this time failing to bounce back and enduring a miserable campaign last season.
They are back with a bang now though, at the summit of the Premier League, in control of their own destiny, and with a chance to win three trophies.
Darwin Nunez is a key part of their resurgence this season, the latest mentality monster that Klopp has created.
-
A rough start
The Uruguayan forward struggled to maintain a place in the starting XI during his debut season, and when he did get on the pitch, he was underwhelming.
He had moved to England around the same time as Erling Haaland and the expectation was that the two would trade blows to top the scoring charts, but whilst the Norwegian settled quickly and broke records, Nunez could only muster fifteen goals and four assists in all competitions.
This led to a lot of rather unfair criticism for the 24-year-old, and a lot of debate over whether the Reds should cut their losses after just one season as a result of him missing 20 big chances in the league.
The critics failed to take into account the situation that Nunez found himself in when he joined from Benfica, it was always going to take him a while to adapt to the Premier League, especially when the team around him was playing so poorly and he was learning a new language and style of football.
The underlying numbers should have given some insight to the critics to not write the player off after a tough first season in an underperforming team.
Although he played in 42 matches, he made just 26 starts, and featured for a total of 2,393 minutes, and although he missed 20 big chances (Haaland missed 28, by the way), he created a lot of chances, which is usually a positive sign about a forward's trajectory.
In April, Klopp emphasised that counter-pressing was the route into his team, and that Nunez needed to adapt if he wanted to become the starting centre forward at Anfield long-term.
“The ticket into this team must be, and will definitely be again, counter-pressing.
He is still adapting. His English is still not great, if not existing at all. We are working on that, massively.
He has to learn English, that’s how it is, we can translate everything but in training sessions, we cannot have four languages translated."
-
Pressing Monster
The first indication of Nunez buying into the ‘never say die’ attitude that has defined the Klopp era is his relentless desire to win back the football, he is now a crucial asset to the Reds’ counter-pressing system in just his second season on English soil.
This is evident when watching the 24-year-old leading the line, relentlessly harassing opposition defenders, and the statistics back up the eye-test on this occasion.
This season, the Uruguayan makes an average of more tackles in the attacking third per 90 minutes (0.48 to 0.47), and only slightly less in the midfield third (0.54) than Roberto Firmino (0.69), who was regarded as the best pressing forward in Europe in his stint at Anfield.
A more insightful metric is possession adjusted pressures, which takes into account the amount of possession a team has (the more a team has, the less opportunities to pressure), however, that has not been available to the general public since FBRef switched to Opta for its data.
In a data release from Statsbomb in January, Nunez ranked fifth for possession adjusted pressures in the Premier League this season with 28.8 per 90, only behind Julian Alvarez, teammate Dominik Szoboszlai, Martin Odegaard and Dejan Kulusevski.
Only three Reds attackers have reached the 30 mark in the period from 2017/18 to 2021/22: Firmino in 2018/19 (33.1), and Diogo Jota in his first two seasons at Anfield (31.5 and 30), suggesting that the Uruguayan forward is now fully adapted to Klopp’s high-octane pressing demands.
-
Output machine
His relentless energy, constantly chasing the ball, making a nuisance of himself in and around the opposition box has endeared him to the supporters, and he is also becoming a vital asset in terms of his contributions.
He might have already missed five chances in a game, and he will pick himself up and go again, desperate to score a goal to help out the team.
The 24-year-old has had an underrated sophomore season so far, scoring 14 goals and assisting 11, an improvement of six contributions from last year’s tally already, with a potential of 21 games still to play.
Perhaps even more impressive, is the fact that the former Benfica man has scored six match-winning goals for the Reds this campaign, including five in the premier league, a joint-record for the season.
Seven of his ten strikes in the league have come away from home, four of the ten opening the scoring, with three coming in stoppage time, two of those being last-gasp winners.
He has not hit the same levels as Erling Haaland, breaking goal records but he is thriving under pressure, and coming up with the goods when his team need him to most, which could be a vital asset in the title race, FA Cup and Europa League.
If he continues on this trajectory after Klopp's departure at the end of the season, he could cement himself as Liverpool’s next great number nine.