Darwin Nunez has been challenged by Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp to improve his poise in front of goal nets in order to break his scoring drought.
Nunez, a summer signing worth £85 million, appeared to be a hit right away when he scored against Manchester City in the Community Shield and contributed with a goal and an assist against Fulham in his Premier League debut, but he hasn’t scored since.
Nunez recently claimed he was having trouble understanding what Klopp was asking of him because of the language barrier in England, but the Liverpool manager insisted no such issues exist.
“He’s a kid as well, how they all are in moments. But he’s a confident person as well but not a grown-up man already,” he began. “We all know you can have a baby and still to grow as a man. That’s clear but it’s all fine.
“People told me there was the headline that, ‘I actually don’t understand a word of what he is saying.’ Yeah, I know that. It was the same with Bobby Firmino and other players. Bobby, maybe a big part of Bobby’s success was that he didn’t understand a word what I said! Because he did everything right without understanding me. For Darwin it is now slightly different.
“We have a completely different situation, so he gets all the necessary information obviously – Spanish speaker in the coaching staff and in the team, so that’s all fine. No, I understand that you ask. I would say it’s all fine.
“It was not a perfect start; he has a three-game suspension. You cannot get rid of them and now this is still here. He’s an aggressive player, he’s emotional, but this should never happen again and these kinds of things. In between that there are a lot of things, and then the opponents go for him, but I really like his movements, that’s really good, that’s natural. It’s something we didn’t have in that way before and that’s what I like and that’s why I’m sure that everything will be fine.
“What is the worst situation what can happen when you come in as a striker into a new team? That your team is not playing exceptionally well because you depend on the things they bring to you, so that’s happened. Now we can judge two things, but we cannot, we have to judge one thing in the moment when we perform consistently to our level and beyond. You need a striker to finish all the situations we create then. So, that’s it.”
