By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
After 22 video games – and 20 throughout the Premier League and Champions League – Slot‘s begin at Liverpool can solely be seen as a hit; prime of each tables and into the Carabao Cup quarter-finals with just one loss up to now.
However whereas Liverpool are snug on the summit each domestically and in Europe, they’re primarily for his or her defensive efforts and never their output in assault.
Three groups – Chelsea (35), Brentford (31) and Tottenham (31) – have scored extra targets within the Premier League, with the Reds equal with Arsenal on 29, whereas 5 groups – Barcelona (21), Dortmund (18), Bayern Munich (17), Atlético Madrid (14) and Feyenoord (14) – have netted extra and two have matched their 13 within the Champions League.
Liverpool lead each tables by advantage of their exceptional potential to regulate video games and ship the killing blow when it issues. It’s which distinguishes Slot’s method from that of his predecessor, Jürgen Klopp.
Nonetheless, it must also be famous that Liverpool are among the many prime 5 groups for large possibilities missed in each competitions: second within the Premier League with 35 (2.5 per sport) and fifth within the Champions League with 13 (2.17 per sport).
Each tallies are both equal to or greater than their variety of targets scored, although that speaks as a lot to the standard of possibilities they’re creating because it does their failure to transform them, as in addition they rank first and fourth for pictures heading in the right direction per sport in league and Europe respectively.
Slot will acknowledge that Liverpool can and may rating extra, however there may be additionally an acceptance that his Liverpool continues to be a piece in progress, and that they’re on prime regardless of this profligacy can solely be a serious optimistic.
That’s the place their two No. 9s are available.
Diogo Jota and Darwin Núñez are, by Slot’s personal admission, two very completely different strikers – and by the identical token, their respective flaws are of a really completely different complexion.
“I feel Diogo is a little more a striker that may additionally go into the midfield and play as a false 9 or a nine-and-a-half, the place Darwin is extra the goal man, that finishes off a superb assault,” the pinnacle coach defined in September.
Having two completely different strikers isn’t any dangerous factor, however most of the time a supervisor may have a plan A and a plan B, and the beginning of the season confirmed that Jota may be very a lot his plan A.
Núñez began solely three of the primary 11 video games of the season – one within the league, one in Europe, one within the cup – whereas Jota began 9; in that point, Jota scored 4 targets and laid on two assists, with Núñez scoring one and helping one.
The eleventh of these video games, the 2-1 win at house to Chelsea, noticed the Portuguese pressured off after half an hour with a rib harm as Núñez took over, fulfilling a shock man-marking function on Cole Palmer in an unorthodox show which galvanized Slot.
Jota has been sidelined since, sitting out of the final 11 video games in a stark reminder of the worrying fragility of a participant who has now missed 94 for membership and nation to 9 completely different accidents up to now four-and-a-half seasons (nearly 21 per season on common).
Of these 11 most up-to-date Jota-less video games, Núñez has began eight and are available off the bench within the remaining three, however the Uruguayan has managed simply two targets in that point – each, to his credit score, match-winners.
Núñez is a participant of fleeting brilliance – and in reality, as lately as October this author mentioned two performances in 4 days that confirmed Núñez may slot in beneath Slot – however the weight of proof is that this will by no means be sufficient.
He’s, in any case, Liverpool’s club-record signing at £85 million and one who, nearly halfway by his third season, is under no circumstances assured of a beginning place up entrance.
That largely seems to be because of Slot preferring a unique sort of striker, with the Dutchman even turning to a pure left winger in Luis Díaz as his deep-dropping No. 9 within the victories over Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester Metropolis.
Díaz scored a hat-trick towards Leverkusen – two as a striker and one after shifting again to the left – with Slot making it clear afterwards why he had been most popular to Núñez.
“I feel [Jonathan] Tah is among the finest defenders in Germany – perhaps the perfect defender in Germany – and he likes perhaps to play extra towards a goal man, somebody who’s there within the center,” he defined.
“We selected to play Lucho extra from the left or the midfield and perhaps shock him afterwards with runs in behind – not solely him, however generally.”
Once more, in two big-game eventualities, Slot opted for a nine-and-a-half fairly than a goal man, with this an enormous indicator of how he plans to construct shifting forwards.
And with each Jota and Núñez proving constantly unreliable for very completely different causes, it ought to come as no shock that reviews are starting to emerge over Liverpool assessing the marketplace for a brand new centre-forward.
Whereas Jayden Danns, 18, presents an intriguing long-term venture within the academy, Brighton’s João Pedro, 23, has been linked by Brazilian outlet UOL and really a lot suits the temporary as a nine-and-a-half, whereas Wolves’ Matheus Cunha, 25, is one other who fits the mould.
Two Brazilians who’re snug main the road but in addition greater than prepared to drop deep and hyperlink play whereas permitting their fellow forwards to flourish, there are numerous similarities with a former Liverpool striker who would have been Slot’s dream: Roberto Firmino.
Each boast Premier League expertise however are but to interrupt by to elite degree, which is usually the market Liverpool have shopped in beneath Fenway Sports activities Group, strengthened once more this 12 months by the reappointment of Michael Edwards as CEO of soccer and the hiring of Richard Hughes as sporting director.
When Edwards introduced his departure from the membership after 5 years as sporting director in 2021, he underlined his personal admiration for Firmino, saying: “One of many different questions I all the time get requested is ‘who was/is your favorite participant?’…all I’ll say is my canine known as Bobby.”
His and Slot’s imaginative and prescient for the center of Liverpool’s assault appears to align, and with neither Jota or Núñez proving the proper match up entrance up to now, it’s straightforward to see the Reds looking for out Bobby mk. II in 2025.
(Photos from IMAGO)
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