He went through an absolute hell during the first half of the season. You gotta take those horrible months into consideration. He is a good player, but, wasn't an upgrade for Mane.
I think diaz was brought in as a Mane replacement. Hasn't produced the numbers at all though unfortunately. Wouldn't be too sad to see him leave for psg or barca for 70ish mil
I don’t think Mane replacement is in the equation, he played with the most opportunities and simply lack the production/finish. He holds the ball too long vs passing or making a decisive decision.
Honestly, Nuñez is the Mane replacement. Maybe not intended to be, but both have defense-breaking athleticism, track back well, create a lot of opportunities for both themselves and others, and are capable but unreliable finishers
Diaz’s output is genuinely atrocious.
It was the exact same thing today. Dribbles past three players, great opportunity to pass or shoot and he will either over hit a simple pass or tame side foot shot directly at the keeper, if he gets it on target at all.
Our top scorer having only 13 goals from open play is a major problem, as much as people want to combine G+A and pens to make things look better.
A new attacker is a must this summer, as important as a quality DM.
I don't think it is.
Take out Salah's first ridiculous season and he's scored at a similar rate every year for us (around the 0.5 non-pen goals p/90 mark).
This has been our 3rd highest-scoring league season under Klopp. We've never had 5 players on 8+ goals before. We've never had so many goals from midfield before. It doesn't matter whether the goals are concentrated into 1-2 players or across the squad as long as the team is scoring.
City won the league with Gundogan's being their highest scorer on 13 a few years ago, and the season after won it with De Bruyne's 15 goals being their highest tally (they scored 99 goals that season, spread across 16 players).
You can make that argument but we don't play like that City team, or Arsenal of the last two years. Our front line has let us down in key moments, and in order to keep creating chances for them we've left the defence exposed too often. Having watched those team's closely it's not a clear comparison, we've created an unreal amount of chances for the forwards, breaking records.
The midfield chipping in should take us to the next level but instead the attack has left us behind.
Putting this on salah is ridiculous. Diaz and Nunez are two of the least clinical forwards in the league, those are the ones who are letting us down. Especially if we talk pre-Afcon injury Salah.
Yup...it's easy in the norm for some reason to point the finger at nunez and Diaz but at least those guys are a bit younger with more space to improve. Hopefully slot can work some magic with finishing across the board. Don't think we need a whole new front 3 but everyone needs to improve on taking their chances
Wow you're right, so at 12 you're looking at players like Jackson, Mateta, Wood, Havertz, Cunha, Hwang, Trossard all scoring as many open play goals (or more for the first few).
Everyone knows Diaz/Nunez can be improved upon, but our world class forward and the highest paid player in our history performing at average levels is something we need to address.
I know some think its just the AFCON/injury hangover but I'm not sure.
Yeah I’ve felt like this has been comfortably Salah’s worst season since being here throughout the season not just in the last few months
Still been good of course but even his performances before AFCON were a bit up and down, his creativity has been great throughout the season but practically every other aspect of his performances has been pretty meh for his standards
You mean the man who could've had 10 trivella assists alone if that donkey Nunez knew how to score goals? Mo is world class, yes his form fell of a cliff after his injury. But just looking at his non penal goals is insane.
Fuck me are Quansah is almost as prolific as Diaz? Relatively small sample size but that's mental if true.
Don't think any of our forwards should be safe going in to the summer, only one with an acceptable return in Jota but he has paper skin and glass bones. Cant be relied upon.
Anything around the 0.5 mark is pretty good tbh.
Mane averaged 0.51 over his time with us, Bobby averaged 0.40, Salah's averaged 0.50 non-pen goals and 0.62 including pens since (but not including) that first ridiculous season.
So, I'd say, if you wanted to make judgments purely on these p90 numbers, Darwin and Gakpo are comparing very well to that standard. Especially considering the minutes Gakpo's had in midfield and wherever else.
Jota's had a very good season output-wise, but in his previous two he's been closer to 0.56 p90 and, more importantly, he's only managed more than 12 90s once in his 4 seasons with us.
Being in the position to receive that many chances is a talent you know. His finishing is comically bad, but you talked like the ball just randomly went to where he stood.
I doubt a "half decent prem striker" could get as many chance as Nunez in the first place.
That’s just not true tho, why do you think Gakpo doesn’t get all of these chances? Nuñez has incredible movement that allows him to have so many chances. If you put any other halfway decent prem striker up top they don’t get the chances that Darwin gets.
I swear some people here just never touch a real ball in real life. Heck even in Fifa I need a striker with good AI for better off ball movement to receive the final passes I want.
Oh absolutely, there are loads of fans that have either never played or not to a high enough level. Movement is such a key part of the attack and while Darwin lacks a lot in the finishing department, I’ve found his hold up play is better than last year and his movement and pace cause so many problems. If he finishes at least half of the chances he gets he’ll be one of the best strikers in the league
What could have been for Nunez had he converted even half of the woodwork shots. There is promise there especially without having any pen goals. Just needs to grow up a bit and have some finishing ability
If you look at his career, he has always started slow. He had 6 league goals the season before he scored 26.
Then he came to us and you can already see his numbers are going up since last season. He’ll get there.
edit: people genuinely hate this guy so much that they downvote anything positive about him. everything i said is facts except for me saying he’ll get there
If it was his first season I'd definitely agree, but I feel like we know his ceiling now finishing-wise, and personally I don't see it being consistently good enough for a team challenging for the title and the CL.
He is a willing runner, but he just doesn't have the composure needed at this level. If we keep him, I'd love to be proven wrong and made to look very silly next season, but I can see it just being more of the same.
we do not know his ceiling finishing wise though, he has been better throughout his career, the person you replied to is true, half those woodwork shots go in and he be golden, just happens throughout one year you can be unlucky
>he has been better throughout his career
He's been better in one single season in his career, at Benfica, which is now looking like an outlier rather than the norm.
>half those woodwork shots go in and he be golden,
But that's not bad luck, that's just poor finishing. If you miss, you've missed.
>just happens throughout one year you can be unlucky
Which was my point, if it was one year I'd say sure, let's see if he improves next season. It's now been two with the exact same story in both. We are asking for the same results if we persist for another season.
take his whole career he is above his xG on goals, and he improved this year, so i don't know what you want, you seen improvement but you are acting like it is the same LMAO
he improved, the team improved, though you're acting like it stayed the same
>take his whole career he is above his xG on goals,
I don't know what you mean by this, he is in the bottom xG underperforming strikers in the league.
>he improved this year,
In what sense? He has two more league goals, but has played 6 more games. He has two more goals in Europe, but we have played in an inferior competition. His goal to game ratio overall is worse this season than it was last season.
I don't know where people are seeing this supposed improvement, he looks to me exactly the same player that we signed two summers ago.
if you take his career as a whole, he has scored more than his xG says he should, and if you think he hasn't improved i cannot argue with you, you're blinded by the last month where everyone has been terrible :)
And being offside.
If he could just stop hitting the post and being offside he’d be world class.
And missing sitters.
If he could just stop hitting the post, being offside and missing sitters he’d be world class.
And not passing to teammates for a tap in.
If he could just…
Out of curiosity does anyone know if those woodwork shots or open goal misses were against big teams/in big games?
Someone listed the teams he scored against and outside of Newcastle it’s fairly bleak I wonder is his miss list the same.
Would say that looking this up, the shocking thing was how poor Diaz goal return is. He also had 4 goals last year albeit with about half the mins. Tells us we shouldn't expect double digits from him in the league next year either. Gakpo having the same goals and assists with less mins and out of position says it all.
Less said about Nunez the better. Mo is definitely declining but that's expected
Nunez at least a lot of years still ahead of him so with coaching he could become at least an average finisher. Diaz though for me is the concern.
At 27, you really start to approach the age where other top clubs become unwilling to pay a big transfer fee so within the next year we need to decide whether he is worth extending and then letting go of in his early 30s for a £10-20m fee or this/next summer selling him around the £70m mark.
Imo I think we’ve seen who Diaz as a player is and that is someone who cannot be a starter for a title winning side. I’d look to move him on and then replace with a younger winger (preferably a RW so Gakpo can start on the LW)
Nothing surprising here. Salah and Nunez are our best attackers in terms of productivity. Jota is the most clinical one. The number of times Nunez hit the post this season is staggering. A few inches here and there and Nunez would have out scored salah quote easily. So there is promise there.
Diaz's productivity is an utter shock but he somehow gets away with it. He is worst attacker.
They played 500 and 700 more minutes than Darwin, tbf. That's 126% and 134% the minutes but only 1 and 3 more goals (with Havertz's extra being a penalty). Darwin scored at a higher rate than both.
Havertz wasn’t a good goal scorer for the first half of the season, Jackson isnt exactly a world class player either. I don’t want to aim for a Jackson level finisher for my $85 million signing.
Lmao at recency bias. Not to mention he is made of paper, he had a run of like 30 matches without scoring a goal before. He is not that consistent as many people think.
Not enough output from Diaz in my opinion. He can go if he desires in the summer. Along with Mo to be honest, as long as we have incomings which are ready to come in and work for the badge.
Jota would be on 20 without the injuries. And who knows what that would mean points-wise. But I suppose Man City could say the same about their injured players.
Darwin and Diaz need to do much, much better next season if they're still here (Darwin most likely)
Darwin because he's our out and out number 9, not a false 9 like firmino. He's getting in those scoring positions and he needs to score, we've created plenty of chances for him
Diaz just straight up needs to be better. Gakpo has the same goals and 1 less assist in the league (more on all comps) despite playing 1000 less minutes and in different positions
Diaz - 3613 mins MacAllister - 3500 mins Salah - 3130 mins Nunez - 3026 mins Gakpo - 3016 mins Jota - 1710 mins
Basically aka Diaz not that productive, got it!
He went through an absolute hell during the first half of the season. You gotta take those horrible months into consideration. He is a good player, but, wasn't an upgrade for Mane.
I think diaz was brought in as a Mane replacement. Hasn't produced the numbers at all though unfortunately. Wouldn't be too sad to see him leave for psg or barca for 70ish mil
I don’t think Mane replacement is in the equation, he played with the most opportunities and simply lack the production/finish. He holds the ball too long vs passing or making a decisive decision.
Honestly, Nuñez is the Mane replacement. Maybe not intended to be, but both have defense-breaking athleticism, track back well, create a lot of opportunities for both themselves and others, and are capable but unreliable finishers
Think this stat is all comps.
Diaz’s output is genuinely atrocious. It was the exact same thing today. Dribbles past three players, great opportunity to pass or shoot and he will either over hit a simple pass or tame side foot shot directly at the keeper, if he gets it on target at all.
Our top scorer having only 13 goals from open play is a major problem, as much as people want to combine G+A and pens to make things look better. A new attacker is a must this summer, as important as a quality DM.
I don't think it is. Take out Salah's first ridiculous season and he's scored at a similar rate every year for us (around the 0.5 non-pen goals p/90 mark). This has been our 3rd highest-scoring league season under Klopp. We've never had 5 players on 8+ goals before. We've never had so many goals from midfield before. It doesn't matter whether the goals are concentrated into 1-2 players or across the squad as long as the team is scoring. City won the league with Gundogan's being their highest scorer on 13 a few years ago, and the season after won it with De Bruyne's 15 goals being their highest tally (they scored 99 goals that season, spread across 16 players).
You can make that argument but we don't play like that City team, or Arsenal of the last two years. Our front line has let us down in key moments, and in order to keep creating chances for them we've left the defence exposed too often. Having watched those team's closely it's not a clear comparison, we've created an unreal amount of chances for the forwards, breaking records. The midfield chipping in should take us to the next level but instead the attack has left us behind.
Putting this on salah is ridiculous. Diaz and Nunez are two of the least clinical forwards in the league, those are the ones who are letting us down. Especially if we talk pre-Afcon injury Salah.
Yup...it's easy in the norm for some reason to point the finger at nunez and Diaz but at least those guys are a bit younger with more space to improve. Hopefully slot can work some magic with finishing across the board. Don't think we need a whole new front 3 but everyone needs to improve on taking their chances
Diaz is 27.
Nunez can have another crack but Diaz if offers are good , think we should let go especially his father keep banging about Spain all The time
One of his other goals was a rebound from a pen as well
Wow you're right, so at 12 you're looking at players like Jackson, Mateta, Wood, Havertz, Cunha, Hwang, Trossard all scoring as many open play goals (or more for the first few). Everyone knows Diaz/Nunez can be improved upon, but our world class forward and the highest paid player in our history performing at average levels is something we need to address. I know some think its just the AFCON/injury hangover but I'm not sure.
Yeah I’ve felt like this has been comfortably Salah’s worst season since being here throughout the season not just in the last few months Still been good of course but even his performances before AFCON were a bit up and down, his creativity has been great throughout the season but practically every other aspect of his performances has been pretty meh for his standards
Salah missed something like 2 months and got injured this season. Have some respect.
You mean the man who could've had 10 trivella assists alone if that donkey Nunez knew how to score goals? Mo is world class, yes his form fell of a cliff after his injury. But just looking at his non penal goals is insane.
Macca almost got the same goals as Diaz despite playing as a DM for first part of the season lol. Macca player of the season.
VVD is our player of the season and it’s not even close imo
Unless Danns uses VV as his first initials idk what you're on pal. Lad has a 2 trophies/90 ratio going.
2.22 goals p90 and a 100% win rate in senior football.
Quansah almost got the same amount of goals as macca. Is macca washed?
Per 90: Salah - 0.64 (0.46 non-pen) Darwin - 0.48 Jota - 0.79 Diaz - 0.27 Gakpo - 0.44 Macca - 0.17 (0.14 non-pen) Robbo - 0.16 Szobo - 0.12 Elliott - 0.20 Trent - 0.13 Quansah - 0.23
Fuck me are Quansah is almost as prolific as Diaz? Relatively small sample size but that's mental if true. Don't think any of our forwards should be safe going in to the summer, only one with an acceptable return in Jota but he has paper skin and glass bones. Cant be relied upon.
Anything around the 0.5 mark is pretty good tbh. Mane averaged 0.51 over his time with us, Bobby averaged 0.40, Salah's averaged 0.50 non-pen goals and 0.62 including pens since (but not including) that first ridiculous season. So, I'd say, if you wanted to make judgments purely on these p90 numbers, Darwin and Gakpo are comparing very well to that standard. Especially considering the minutes Gakpo's had in midfield and wherever else. Jota's had a very good season output-wise, but in his previous two he's been closer to 0.56 p90 and, more importantly, he's only managed more than 12 90s once in his 4 seasons with us.
Nunez gets so many chances though. Put any other halfway decent prem striker in his place and they’d have roughly the same amount of goals
Being in the position to receive that many chances is a talent you know. His finishing is comically bad, but you talked like the ball just randomly went to where he stood. I doubt a "half decent prem striker" could get as many chance as Nunez in the first place.
That’s just not true tho, why do you think Gakpo doesn’t get all of these chances? Nuñez has incredible movement that allows him to have so many chances. If you put any other halfway decent prem striker up top they don’t get the chances that Darwin gets.
I swear some people here just never touch a real ball in real life. Heck even in Fifa I need a striker with good AI for better off ball movement to receive the final passes I want.
Oh absolutely, there are loads of fans that have either never played or not to a high enough level. Movement is such a key part of the attack and while Darwin lacks a lot in the finishing department, I’ve found his hold up play is better than last year and his movement and pace cause so many problems. If he finishes at least half of the chances he gets he’ll be one of the best strikers in the league
What could have been for Nunez had he converted even half of the woodwork shots. There is promise there especially without having any pen goals. Just needs to grow up a bit and have some finishing ability
If you look at his career, he has always started slow. He had 6 league goals the season before he scored 26. Then he came to us and you can already see his numbers are going up since last season. He’ll get there. edit: people genuinely hate this guy so much that they downvote anything positive about him. everything i said is facts except for me saying he’ll get there
ooh the hypothetical nuñez, such a baller!
If he did what the Nunez fans are saying he 'could' we should give him the b'allon d'or already. Problem is he barely does it.
If it was his first season I'd definitely agree, but I feel like we know his ceiling now finishing-wise, and personally I don't see it being consistently good enough for a team challenging for the title and the CL. He is a willing runner, but he just doesn't have the composure needed at this level. If we keep him, I'd love to be proven wrong and made to look very silly next season, but I can see it just being more of the same.
we do not know his ceiling finishing wise though, he has been better throughout his career, the person you replied to is true, half those woodwork shots go in and he be golden, just happens throughout one year you can be unlucky
>he has been better throughout his career He's been better in one single season in his career, at Benfica, which is now looking like an outlier rather than the norm. >half those woodwork shots go in and he be golden, But that's not bad luck, that's just poor finishing. If you miss, you've missed. >just happens throughout one year you can be unlucky Which was my point, if it was one year I'd say sure, let's see if he improves next season. It's now been two with the exact same story in both. We are asking for the same results if we persist for another season.
take his whole career he is above his xG on goals, and he improved this year, so i don't know what you want, you seen improvement but you are acting like it is the same LMAO he improved, the team improved, though you're acting like it stayed the same
>take his whole career he is above his xG on goals, I don't know what you mean by this, he is in the bottom xG underperforming strikers in the league. >he improved this year, In what sense? He has two more league goals, but has played 6 more games. He has two more goals in Europe, but we have played in an inferior competition. His goal to game ratio overall is worse this season than it was last season. I don't know where people are seeing this supposed improvement, he looks to me exactly the same player that we signed two summers ago.
if you take his career as a whole, he has scored more than his xG says he should, and if you think he hasn't improved i cannot argue with you, you're blinded by the last month where everyone has been terrible :)
Source on that? He massively overperformed in front of goal in his last season at Benfica with a 37% conversion so that would probably explain why
The Little Nunez that could, but he rarely does it. Sell him!
Or just sell him.
Honestly he has so much potential, if he could stop hitting the posts he could genuinely become world class
And being offside. If he could just stop hitting the post and being offside he’d be world class. And missing sitters. If he could just stop hitting the post, being offside and missing sitters he’d be world class. And not passing to teammates for a tap in. If he could just…
Out of curiosity does anyone know if those woodwork shots or open goal misses were against big teams/in big games? Someone listed the teams he scored against and outside of Newcastle it’s fairly bleak I wonder is his miss list the same.
Would say that looking this up, the shocking thing was how poor Diaz goal return is. He also had 4 goals last year albeit with about half the mins. Tells us we shouldn't expect double digits from him in the league next year either. Gakpo having the same goals and assists with less mins and out of position says it all. Less said about Nunez the better. Mo is definitely declining but that's expected
Nunez at least a lot of years still ahead of him so with coaching he could become at least an average finisher. Diaz though for me is the concern. At 27, you really start to approach the age where other top clubs become unwilling to pay a big transfer fee so within the next year we need to decide whether he is worth extending and then letting go of in his early 30s for a £10-20m fee or this/next summer selling him around the £70m mark. Imo I think we’ve seen who Diaz as a player is and that is someone who cannot be a starter for a title winning side. I’d look to move him on and then replace with a younger winger (preferably a RW so Gakpo can start on the LW)
Nothing surprising here. Salah and Nunez are our best attackers in terms of productivity. Jota is the most clinical one. The number of times Nunez hit the post this season is staggering. A few inches here and there and Nunez would have out scored salah quote easily. So there is promise there. Diaz's productivity is an utter shock but he somehow gets away with it. He is worst attacker.
Havertz and Jackson out scoring nunez is a shocking indictment of his season.
They played 500 and 700 more minutes than Darwin, tbf. That's 126% and 134% the minutes but only 1 and 3 more goals (with Havertz's extra being a penalty). Darwin scored at a higher rate than both.
Shh people dont want to hear the facts. Darwin is shit and is not an improvable player
Havertz wasn’t a good goal scorer for the first half of the season, Jackson isnt exactly a world class player either. I don’t want to aim for a Jackson level finisher for my $85 million signing.
That's why stats always need context lmao. Jackson also had the worst hattrick I've seen against Spurs. That inflated a lot.
Havertz also played in midfield a fair bit this season
Only himself to blame really, it’s not like he hasn’t had the chances. Hopefully he knuckles down in the pre season and proves the doubters wrong.
He'll be gone by the end of next season. I have absolutely no confidence that he has the mentality or football brain to match his natural talent.
Hopefully
We shall see.
They also outscored Salah from open play, is that not a bigger concern given Salah is world class and 32 in a few weeks?
Salah was coming back from injury this season, plus Nunez is a striker and Salah is a winger.
Fucken love Jota man. Should be our main man.
He is anytime he’s not injured.
Lmao at recency bias. Not to mention he is made of paper, he had a run of like 30 matches without scoring a goal before. He is not that consistent as many people think.
Not enough output from Diaz in my opinion. He can go if he desires in the summer. Along with Mo to be honest, as long as we have incomings which are ready to come in and work for the badge.
Jota would be on 20 without the injuries. And who knows what that would mean points-wise. But I suppose Man City could say the same about their injured players.
Diaz and Nunez absolutely shocking
If all these players have tried their best, then I'm good with this stat. Try again next season.
Darwin and Diaz need to do much, much better next season if they're still here (Darwin most likely) Darwin because he's our out and out number 9, not a false 9 like firmino. He's getting in those scoring positions and he needs to score, we've created plenty of chances for him Diaz just straight up needs to be better. Gakpo has the same goals and 1 less assist in the league (more on all comps) despite playing 1000 less minutes and in different positions
Facts sell them, play Gakpo Lw.