Everyone thinks Darwin Nunez is off this summer, but perhaps his Liverpool career might be saved.
Look the reality is that the Reds want to sell the Uruguayan. He just hasn’t got going in a Liverpool shirt and the chances are he never will.
Arne Slot doesn’t particularly seem to rate him and his erratic behaviour on and off the pitch hasn’t helped things with the Dutchman.
Nunez is a loose wire. He’s unpredictable, sometimes in the very best and sometimes in the very worst possible ways.
But somewhere deep within him, hides a phenomenal talent. If he can just harness that potential, Liverpool know they have a fantastic player on their hands. Someone who could dominate defenders at ease.
Someone who could flourish in this Liverpool system under Slot – especially with the arrival of Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong.
And in order to do that Liverpool might have just brought in someone who could save his career.
Liverpool announced the arrival of goalkeeping coach Xavi Valero. The club released an official post on their website, welcoming the Spaniard’s return to Anfield after 15 years.
At first glance it may not be immediately obvious why Valero would be the man to save Nunez’s career. After all, he’s a goalkeeping coach. How could a goalkeeping coach help a striker?
Well, Valero is a rather unorthodox goalkeeping coach. He believes goalkeeping sessions should be integrated with outfield players and he is often helping out strikers as well when he does his opposition analysis.
In fact, when he was last at the club, Fernando Torres credited him for his performances and goals.
Speaking in 2008 as per the Daily Mirror, Torres said: “We’ve a Spanish goalkeeping coach and he has been a genius at telling me every week exactly what kind of task lies in front of me in the following match. Nobody has ever worked with me like this before. It’s outstanding.
“Basically, I know days before the next game exactly the best way to finish a chance against the keeper I’m about to face. Xavi Valero tells me precisely what each keeper tends to do – stay big, go down early, if they have a preferred side they try to push you to. It’s vital information. I’ve refined the way I take chances as a result.”
Ten years after that interview, Valero addressed Torres’ comments in an interview with ESPN:
“Because we’re training with goalkeepers and we always know how goalkeepers are going to react, I like to let the goalkeepers know how the other team is going to attack them, how they’re going to attack our goalkeepers,” Valero said.
“Sometimes there’s some relevant information for the strikers to know about the goalkeeper. With Fernando, and other players at different teams, I always tried to give him some tips. If there’s any weak point we can exploit, we tried it. It’s good and sometimes helps the striker to have that information when it comes to the very last moment of the game or finishing in one-versus-one [situations].
“We will try to do it [now], but not all the ‘keepers have weak points. If you find one then you have to exploit it.”
Having someone like that giving this kind of information to Nunez before games could be the confidence booster the Uruguayan needs.
Valero’s work clearly paid off with Torres, and the fact that he is Spanish meaning he can converse with Nunez will be a massive benefit as well.