Jamie Carragher has claimed that he would’ve found new Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez ‘a handful’ and believes the Uruguayan will cause ‘big problems’ for those he comes up against this season.
The 23-year-old was signed from SL Benfica for £64m earlier this summer and after scoring twice and assisting once in his first two competitive outings for the club, the forward has struggled to make an impact since.
He was sent off on his home debut for Liverpool for a head butt but ex-Red Carragher believes that Nunez cannot be judged until he plays more minutes for Jurgen Klopp’s side.
“I would have found him a handful,” Carragher told the Daily Mail. “I think anyone would.
“It is just where Liverpool can have that connection with him, But the size, the pace, the power of him, he has a great goal-scoring record, you don’t want to be coming up against him too often.
“It has been really stop-start for him. Obviously the sending off was unfortunate and coming on at different times and trying to get up to speed with the rest of the team. But also getting used to the new team as well.
“He is completely different to what Liverpool had before in terms of Roberto Firmino. He is a completely different profile of player.
“He looks raw but there is no doubt there are some great physical attributes. He causes big problems for the opposition.
“It is just the next five or six weeks we will see that integration a lot more. It will be a lot easier then to judge whether he is the right fit, because now he has just not played enough football for the team.”
Our No. 27 lit up the Portuguese top flight last season and even scored in both of Benfica’s Champions League clashes with Liverpool.
We struggled to keep him quiet at Anfield during our quarter-final second leg tie and we’re hoping to see that sort of form from him in the coming months.
He scored 34 times in 41 outings for Benfica last season in what was a seriously impressive campaign for the former Almeria forward.
It’s somewhat unfair to judge him from his appearances at the club so far – he’s played a total of just 259 competitive minutes for Liverpool with a number of those coming from the bench.
Klopp’s team as a whole hasn’t really been firing this season so to expect a new signing to come into the side and hit the ground running is a big ask.
He’s adjusting to a new culture, a new language and a new style of play to what he had become accustomed to in Lisbon so he must be afforded time until we can make a proper judgement.
Carragher is right to highlight the difference in style between Nunez and Bobby Firmino.
When the Uruguayan is on the pitch, it means that Klopp can operate with an out and out striker for the first time in years with Liverpool supporters used to having Firmino playing in between the lines.
It may take time for the likes of Mo Salah and Luis Diaz to establish a relationship with Nunez on the pitch but we’re certainly confident that he’ll soon be firing on all cylinders.
The post Jamie Carragher explains why he’d hate to play against Darwin Nunez and claims it’s too early to judge the Uruguayan appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
