The forward has experienced an inconsistent first season in England
Darwin Nunez has featured in the unwanted list of top 10 underperforming strikers based on expected goals this season.
The Uruguayan joined in the summer off the back of a successful season in Portugal at Benfica with high expectations after a 34-game campaign, however, his time in England has been inconsistent to say the least. There have certainly been strong moments in the league and in Europe, but they’ve been undermined by consistently missing big chances. If he had taken even a small percentage of those opportunities, we’d be talking about him hitting 20+ goals in all competitions in his debut season – and that would clearly be a great return.
According to WhoScored, Nunez is ranked 6th on the list of the underperforming strikers based on xG, with a figure of -4.3 difference which means the quality of chances he experienced should have seen him score at least four more goals than he ended up with. Interestingly, Mohamed Salah features at eighth on the list, but the sheer amount of chances and positions he finds himself in means he is also threatening the opposition goal and it’s not a surprise that he features as, despite his brilliance, he often passes up chances before then going onto score goals at will.
Patrick Bamford and Kai Havertz top the list with -5.2 and -5.1 respectively, but other than Salah, no other player has netted more goals than Nunez in total this season – in fact, no other player on the list has more than 10 goals in all competitions except the Liverpool duo.
As said previously, the chances are there for Nunez – he just has to find a way of finishing them. With his height, aggressiveness and speed (he recorded the league’s fifth highest top speed with 36.53 km/h) he will cause plenty of problems. Next season will be a big year for the forward, especially considering he will have to compete against the more consistent duo of Diogo Jota and Cody Gakpo for the starting role.
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