Marcelo Bielsa tells Liverpool how to get best out of Darwin Nunez after Copa America heroics
Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa has urged Liverpool counterpart Arne Slot to keep faith in under-fire striker Darwin Nunez.
Nunez was heavily linked with a move away from Liverpool this summer amid frustrations towards his conversion rate in front of goal. The Uruguay striker netted 11 Premier League goals last season but was criticised for failing to increase that tally.
At international level, however, Nunez is flying. He has five goals in his last three games under Bielsa, including goals in each of Uruguay’s two Copa America clashes so far, and the former Leeds United boss insists the key to maximising Nunez is continuing to create chances for him.
„Darwin is a player who doesn’t need any kind of support,“ Bielsa told a press conference.
„You have to know what it means to play for Liverpool and who he is competing with, and what his cycles were like, when he scored, when he stopped scoring, why he stopped scoring. These are things that he manages in proportion to the place he occupies in the football world.
„The only thing that worries me is that… he is able to do what he does in an extraordinary way as many times as possible, which is converting, finishing the moves, but choosing where he should direct the shot that provides the right conditions to execute it…
„I insist, it would be a contradiction for me to say that what has value are the goals because I am saying the opposite. What is the best way to accompany that, since he does not need company because he has shown that he can solve it on his own? Trying to give him a lot of balls to score goals.“
Nunez himself has thanked fellow Uruguay native and former Liverpool favourite Luis Suarez for helping him showcase his best form.
„More than anything, you always need the support of your teammates,“ Nunez said. „I think that in the national team today we have a beautiful group, a group that if a player is bad, we know that references like Luis Suarez are going to come, always there, giving advice.
„I always try to get together with him, to talk about football things, about his past. He is always there to give me advice and I take everything as positive and try applying it.“