When Liverpool announced the signing of £ 85 million of striker Darwin Nunez only one day after it came to Manchester City, it felt like it could be the dawn of one of the Great Premier League rivative.
Two young front men with a big money, large from stature and large of reputation, ready to bring it together to fire their side to glory.
Only, it never succeeded. Haaland hit the ground and never looked back, fired city to back-to-back titles and took two gold boots in the process.
Nunez, on the other hand, still fights to prove that he has what is needed. Haaland is the pillar of the city attack. NUNEZ has started less than half of the Liverpool league games since his arrival. He has shown a glimpse of what he can do, but so often shows what he can't do.
Nothing did this more than his striking Miss in Liverpool's draw with Aston Villa when he blew a huge opportunity on the bar with the net open, unguarded and to his grace.
That is the frustrating thing about Nunez, much of his game is fantastic. He is quick and stretches the piece, his physicality causes constant chaos for opposition distributions and his movement is so good that it brings him more often in target positions than many other Premier League spiers.
Only four players have collected more 'big opportunities' than NUNEZ – which statistics Gurus Opta define as an opportunity that a player should reasonably be expected – during his time at the club – Haaland, Mohamed Salah, Ollie Watkins and Alexander Isak.
However, they all played at least 1,000 competition finances than the Liverpool striker. Haaland has played almost 50 hours more Premier League football than Nunez; Watkins and Salah almost 60 more.
NUNEZ is an elite chanance getter. The problem is, as he keeps showing, he is anything but an elite finisher. Of those 67 great opportunities, he missed 51 – more than three -quarters, comfortably the worst finishing speed of everyone with 20 goals since his debut.
Since his debut, only Dominic Calvert-Lewin has his expected goals (XG) as drastically disadvantaged as Nunez. The frontman of Liverpool has scored almost eight goals less than he should have done based on the quality of his chances.
Of the 35 players to score 20 goals since Nunez and Haaland arrived in the Premier League, only two-Bruno Fernandes and Ebereechi Eze, have none of non-and-out strikers-a worse conversion rate than the 11 percent of Nunez.
All in all, Nunez scores one in every nine shots. Isak and Haaland meanwhile score about one in four.
That is what makes them strikers of world class.
A status made the rounds after the Villa match that NUNEZ missed 0.99 big chances per 90 minutes since its competition debut, most player. Interestingly, the Haaland was second on the list at 0.95.
The city of Kolos also misses almost one game, it is not only Nunez who wasted Sitters.
Where that is less for Haaland is that he usually buries the first to come on his way. And if he doesn't, he will get another one.
In the 23 games where Haaland only had one big chance, he has converted it 15 times. In the 25 games in which Nunez only had one, he missed 20 and Liverpool did not win half of the matches. It matters more when Nunez misses.
So why does he miss more? First, Haaland is simply more accurate. A glance at his shot cards during their time in their respective clubs shows that the Stadsman is better able to find the corners when it matters, while Nunez often shoots the keeper – or misses the target completely.
No one with 20 competition goals since his arrival does this at a faster pace, where NUNEZ places 39 percent of his shots – two in five of them – wide, against the post or exaggerated.
Haaland keeps things easy. Nunez often looks confused, in his thoughts and his technology. His notorious Miss against Manchester United last season, for an open goal, he could not decide whether he would tap it or hit it and ultimately did not do it.
Nunez's mistakes seem to disturb him more. Haaland is a robot. Nunez's Miss against Villa hit him so much, Arne Slot came out after the game to criticize how the working speed of the striker fell after the chance.
However, what this Miss also clouded was how much NUNEZ actually improved this season.
NUNEZ has scored four goals of an XG of … four this period. His conversion rate is up to 15 percent, still not great, but better. Despite his Villa -Miss, he repeats around 43 percent of his great opportunities.
He still has a long way to go and picking his lines in Villa Park seems to have put him back again.
Fortunately, Liverpool still has a healthy lead at the top of the table for Nunez. However, if it starts to beg, Slot needs his strikers to be ruthless if it matters.
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