'That will be his career' - Pundit's brutal verdict on Liverpool star Darwin Nunez

Darwin Nunez does not deserve an extended run in the Liverpool side despite opening his goalscoring account for the season, according to Reds legend Steve Nicol.

Speaking to ESPN FC after the 3-0 Premier League win over Bournemouth on Saturday, Nicol postulated: “Would you drop Jota for him next week? I don’t think I would.” 

“There’s no question that him getting a run of games would help…”, Nicol continued, “Unfortunately you’ve got to win games and you’ve got to put your best team on the field. The fact that they lost last week against Forest means that Arne Slot has to be really on the money and play his best team and go and win games.

"And then maybe he can start thinking about ‘how can I help some players?’ like Nunez, ‘how do I get them confidence?’, ‘how do I get them scoring more goals?’”

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The comments came after Nunez’s scored a magnificent goal in the Reds' win at Anfield last weekend. The game marked the Uruguayan’s first start of the season, heading a front line that also consisted of Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah.

Consistency is key

Also speaking on the show, Craig Burley praised the striker, but noted that, “I just feel he’ll always have these patches and then the manager will do what previous managers have done and that’s make some changes and go with a false 9, or a [Diogo] Jota, and I think that will be Darwin Nunez’s career. I don’t think we’ll ever see him as this consistent player but we’ll see him have these special moments.”

The comments arrive amid debate about Nunez’s long-term place in the Liverpool team following Arne Slot’s arrival as manager. Before this weekend, Darwin’s longest time on the pitch was the closing 31 minutes in last weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest, and he had tallied zero goal involvements in his cameos. 

However, this was the prime example of why he gets minutes in this Liverpool side. With the Reds 2-0 up due to some good pressure and calamitous decision-making by Bournemouth goalkeeper Kepa, Nunez played a quick one-two with Salah before chopping in from the right edge of the box and crashing the ball off the inside of the post for Liverpool’s third of the day.