Former Liverpool record signing Stan Collymore has his say on the challenges facing Darwin Nunez and Federico Chiesa at Anfield in an exclusive interview with the ECHO’s Theo Squires
Former Liverpool record signing Stan Collymore believes Darwin Nunez needs to add a ‘bit of nastiness’ to his game if he is to live up to his potential at Anfield. The Uruguayan joined the Reds in a club-record £85m swoop from Benfica in the summer of 2022.
But he has endured a rollercoaster Anfield career to date as he’s found himself in and out of the Liverpool starting XI and, at times, struggled for form and consistency.
Boasting 36 goals and 19 assists from 110 appearances for the Reds to date, the 25-year-old has three goals to his name so far this season from 14 appearances. However, he only started to start regularly under new head coach Arne Slot following an injury to Diogo Jota.
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Collymore is a fan of Nunez, who was sent off on his Anfield debut for headbutting Joachim Andersen back in August 2022, and is confident that the striker will always score goals despite his erratic record.
But he wants to see the Uruguayan come out of his shell, insisting he needs to believe he can be the main man at Liverpool if he is going to ever really fully show what he’s capable of.
“I think that, particularly for strikers, it’s a big challenge at Liverpool,” he exclusively told the ECHO, courtesy of NewBettingSites.uk. “If you think of all the strikers that Liverpool have had over many, many years, it’s quite incredible really.
“The bar is very high when you walk into the club. When I came to the club, I was at Nottingham Forest and being the main source of goals. At Liverpool because Robbie Fowler was that, I tailored my game around him and still got 50 goal involvements, 50 direct goal involvements in 80 games, which is good. But it still, when I left, felt like failure because we didn’t win anything with it.
“So with Darwin Nunez, it’s an interesting one because when you look at him, you think he’s got all the physical attributes. If you look at the Premier League, Erling Haaland, even Chris Wood, there has been a reinvention of the number nine.
“He’s quick, he can run in behind, he’s got decent feet. He’s no Messi at his feet but he can run with the ball. I think that in terms of his goals output, strikers are either consistent goalscorers – Again, you go back through Liverpool, you have Suarez, Torres, Fowler and Owen who were scoring week in, week out – or you have players that score in fits and starts.
“So Haaland will score ten goals in three games and then have a little spell of a couple of games without a goal and work like that.
“But Darwin is neither. I think that looking at them, you think to yourself, there’s so much more because we’ve seen some of the goals he scored, whether it be for the club or for his country.
“And I wonder, he seems a little bit shy, a little bit in his shell as a personality. And I think that in the dressing room, sometimes you have to go, ‘F**king give it to me! Get it in the box and give it to me!’
“That’s Haaland. If you think of Haaland, you know he’s going to say to people, ‘Give it to me!’ And he points to people where he wants it. And I think that’s the bit of Darwin Nunez’s game that’s missing, which then has a direct impact on his goals output.
“He’ll always get his ten, 15, maybe 20 goals depending on if he plays all tournaments. But what you want to really see him get is 20-25 Premier League goals, which added to Diaz’s and Salah’s and Jota’s and other people’s, would seriously put distance between Liverpool and the other teams.
“So, for me, it’s just a little bit of spice, maybe a little bit of nastiness. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t.
“I think that sometimes when you’ve got somebody like Mo Salah around you, that takes all the plaudits, the Egyptian King, you look at him as the main goal scoring conduit, sometimes you can take a back seat.
“So I’d just like him to come out and do, even interview and go, ‘You know what? Mo Salah is the man but I want to be the number nine here! Liverpool had some great strikers over the years. I’m going to get me 25 goals this season!’
“And almost convince himself that he has that spark, that bite, and that he has that belief to be a great Liverpool striker because he has all the attributes to do it.
“But if you look at him, you go, ‘Is there more to come?’ And I think that that more to come is going to be personality, belief that he’s the man at Liverpool.”
Meanwhile, Collymore has urged Liverpool to be patient with summer signing Federico Chiesa. The Italy international has been limited to just 78 minutes of action since joining the Reds for an initial £10m from Juventus at the end of August because of injury and fitness issues.
The forward has repeatedly been linked with a return in Serie A in recent weeks, with reports back in Italy claiming that the 27-year-old is unhappy at Anfield and that his agent has offered the forward to Inter Milan and AS Roma on loan.
Collymore can understand why it might not have been easy for Chiesa on Merseyside so far, but he would be sad to see the Italy international’s Liverpool career cut short prematurely.
“When he came in, it was all sort of, ‘I can’t believe I’m here!’ kind of thing.” he said. “I know his dad is quite influential on him. And they said how happy they were to come to the club.
“And to come to the club that was on the up again. A new manager, a new voice, a pedigree at home and abroad which is second to none.
“I think that when you have a very bad injury, sometimes when you come back, you can have lots of supplementary ones. So if you’ve broken your leg or if you’ve had knee reconstruction surgery or an Achilles tendon go, you come back, it’s all ready. You train and you play a couple of games but then you have maybe a hamstring problem or something because your body is soft at that point. It’s not battle hardened again.
“So Liverpool knew that when they brought him in. I think they were hoping that maybe it would take half a dozen games coming off the bench. But it hasn’t.
“He’s probably done stuff in training and thought, ‘Crikey, this isn’t quite right.’ What he’s got to be, as a player, is honest – Can he still do it? Because what he won’t want to be is a dead weight.
“If you’re injured, it’s not nice being in a new city because you don’t feel a part of the team. You don’t feel a part of the joy when you’re winning games.
“I would be very sad to see him go because I think he’s a cracking player that’s gone through a lot of adversity with a very nasty injury, but he’s got something to add for sure. He’s a player for sure. He’s big, he’s strong. He can run at players. He’s direct.
“They may decide to cut their losses in January. They might decide to send him out on loan and get some games somewhere in Italy. But I would just give him that extra time for him to put his hand up and say, ‘I’m fit’, give him those half a dozen games and then judge him then.”
