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Debate has been rife over how Darwin Nuñez will perform at Liverpool, but ex-Reds’ forward Robbie Fowler believes he is just what Jurgen Klopp's side needs.
Speaking BBC Sport Merseyside, Fowler asserted his belief that his former team have been “missing this type of player [Nuñez] for a good few years now.”
Fowler continued that he doesn’t think Liverpool have had an “archetypal number nine” for a while, the sort of who “wants to play on defender’s shoulders” and “get over the back line.”
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Signing a player with such a profile represents a significant change in direction for Jürgen Klopp’s side.
Despite chipping in with a fair share of goals themselves, both Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino have operated in more restricted centre-forward roles over the years.
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They’ve been handed the task of dropping deep, linking play between midfield and attack, and enabling the forwards either side of them to play with freedom.
Nuñez won’t be that sort of player for the Merseysiders. Instead, as Fowler suggests, he’ll be a proper striker.
The type who looks to get on the end of chances and who runs in behind backlines.
What will be interesting to see is how this impacts the performance of the forwards in and around Nuñez.
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Could the levels of the likes of Mo Salah, Luis Diaz, and Diogo Jota depreciate without a false 9 offering them the space to score freely?
This is something that remains to be seen at Liverpool. The signing of Nuñez is exciting, but Jürgen Klopp will need to tweak things tactically as a result of the Uruguayan’s arrival.
Topics: Liverpool, Darwin Nunez