The Uruguay international heads in to Sunday’s Premier League clash with Luton Town in excellent form, having scored or assisted in each of his last five games in all competitions, including netting the winning goal at AFC Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup last time out.
Having tallied 15 goals in his debut season on Merseyside, the 24-year-old is already on seven for this campaign – and speaking to reporters ahead of the trip to Luton, Klopp explained why things have started to change for the No.9. Here’s what the boss had to say…
Every angle of Nunez’s Bournemouth stunner
On Nunez’s use as a centre-forward this season… Now we are set up slightly different with a different confidence level, we used the full pre-season to get used to that. In that moment, when we are defensively stable, then he has to play from the centre. It is to make sure we are compact but we don’t have to judge all the different options of the opponent where they could go through. We got used to Bobby [Firmino] and then Cody [Gakpo] stepped in really well and then all of a sudden Darwin’s first thing should be to stretch the formation and be there. The team needed stability there [last season].
On Nunez’s increased confidence this season…
It’s the riddle of the life of a striker. You have a few goals already and it makes it easier. He always will miss chances but if you miss the first five before you score it doesn’t feel great. Now he has had a good start to the season and he has scored fantastic goals, different goals, all kinds of goals. He’s in a different moment
Jürgen Klopp has detailed the changes that have enabled Darwin Nunez to flourish at Liverpool during the early part of this season.
Darwin is No.9. He can play the wing as well and it all depends on how we want to work an opponent, where the space is, where you can unleash his full potential, things like this. The thing is, last year, especially when things did not go particularly well, it was super-important that everything was set up perfectly and we needed a No.9 who defended the centre perfectly in a way Darwin was not able to do then. Now he can.
