22 Apr 2024 18:25:37
In defence of Nunez, the team have been taking one too many touches of the ball. Nunez is on his way and is caught offside because one pass or one touch too many has put him in the position of being offside. We do not play the lad correctly, we do not use his pace to his advantage.
22 Apr 2024 18:52:59
Remember the roy Keane quote about haalands all round game being that of a league 2 players? It's like Nunez is the opposite.
He's strong, fast, can dribble well and has bags of strength and stamina but his shooting and general play in the final third is worse than league 2 standard.
You should at least be hitting the target or making a pass as a principal and I don't think mentally you can teach composure you either have it or you don't.
Not knocking the guy he works tremendously hard and is a loveable bloke but if we want to be winning premier leagues and big cups he can't be relied on.
22 Apr 2024 19:30:20
Three paragraphs criticizing Nunez then saying not knocking the guy, brilliant ?.
22 Apr 2024 19:19:41
I like Nunez but he’s more bullet proof than a Kevlar vest.
Yes not every time he’s offside might not be his fault but he has to take some accountability as well.
Yesterday one of his offsides was from Sakah’s first time touch pass so you can’t get any quicker ball release than that.
The other forwards manage to time their runs regardless of how quick we’re playing it.
Nunez has been offside 41 times this season with the next highest being Salah at 18 and Diaz at 17.
22 Apr 2024 19:43:00
Salah not Sakah. Bloody phone.
22 Apr 2024 20:16:03
I think you’ll find JK that Nunez had made the run to take the pass before the ball went to Salah. The fact that the ball went via Salah and not directly through to Nunez meant he’d run offside.
I think in general we’ve started to take too many touches as if no one wants to take risks with the ball. It normally means that everything closes up in front of the player with the ball and he has to go sideways or backwards to keep possession.
If we started popping it around at pace then Nunez wouldn’t be offside half as much. He’ll always get caught offside occasionally because he likes to run in behind but we need to be much quicker in all aspects of our play to get the best out of him.
22 Apr 2024 20:38:51
Well I’m glad that’s been cleared up. 41 times it’s been the passers fault.
I’m probably going to stop going to live matches now and wait to be told with “I think you’ll find” on here to bring me fully up to speed.
22 Apr 2024 20:44:52
Sometimes it might be too many passes. Sometimes it's because his timing is off. Sometimes it's because he's looking right across the line but still runs offside despite being faster than 99% of defenders. I remember people saying he was very raw when he came. He's still v raw now unfortunately. Its frustrating because when he came on against Newcastle and scored those 2 clinical goals I thought yes here we go. But it hasn't really happened unfortunately. I love his enthusiasm, his fight and how unpredictable he is but he needs to score more for the amount of good chances he gets it's as simple as that.
22 Apr 2024 20:45:38
I agree, our all round play is slow, way too slow. Too much sideways and backwards, it’s painful to watch sometimes and so boring.
It is something that has been going on all season but we are now at the business end of the season and don’t seem to be able to shift up two gears when needed.
Luckily Fulham were on their holidays yesterday. Everton will be a cauldron and I hope we’re ready.
22 Apr 2024 21:44:01
All great forwards go through periods of gobbling up lots of chances. Difference with Nunez is it is not the exception, but the rule. Even when the likes of Haaland, Salah, or prime Mane have missed chances, you can usually see what they were trying to do. Nunez doesn't have a clue.
You can argue that this doesn't matter due to the net benefit he brings to the team, but we are starting to see there is only so far you can persist with that type of player. For all that he brings to our play, his incompetence in front of goal is mentally damaging to our own players and lifts the oppositions. It has now become 'a thing'. Nunez begins to miss one or two sitters and everybody's heads go, players and fans alike.
I don't think that is something that everyone else needs to change, it is on him to stop burning everybody's heads out. I feel that he gives encouragement to the opposition and has become detrimental to the confidence and momentum of our team. He makes it almost impossible to control football matches and I think the very least that he needs is a spell coming off the bench. In the longer term, I am not sure he can be relied upon to lead the line for a top side.
Almost two years here and he hasn't had one single commanding, dominant performance where everything goes well for him. Just splitters and false starts, a late goal here, an assist there. For as much as he puts himself about, I just don't feel it is enough.
22 Apr 2024 22:00:28
Hit a nerve JK?
I think you’ll find that I did say he will get caught offside anyway because he likes to run in behind. Any player that plays on the shoulder of the last defender is bound to be caught offside more than a player who comes deep. It’s logical.
We do pass the ball slowly, anyone with any sense can see that. That doesn’t mean and nor did I suggest that it’s the passers fault every time.
Why can’t it just be a bit of both rather than just hammering the lad every time he gets caught offside? In the instance you mentioned there was a straight pass on to Nunez so he makes the run but the ball is played to Salah first who then plays it first time but by this time he’s run offside. I was just correcting your obvious misjudgement of the situation.
He’s not perfect by any stretch but there are way too many fans these days that choose to focus on any negative aspect of a player rather than looking at his positive attributes. It’s the world we live in unfortunately.
22 Apr 2024 22:48:09
Not at all.
I’ve hardly hammered him. I regularly praise the lad as well as the rest of the players.
You always seem to be correcting people on here.
“I was just correcting your obvious misjudgement of the situation” I doubt you could get any more condescending if you tried.
23 Apr 2024 00:33:26
Just being honest about his game but the Nunez fan club seems any criticism of his game a vendetta. Nunez is fine if we want to compete with spurs and co for top four to win the league we need better.
23 Apr 2024 03:19:58
I think if we are being honest with ourselves then we can admit that Nunez is a very good player, but he isn’t a world class player and will likely never be. He isn’t composed enough, nor deadly enough, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be an effective player for us - simply means we need to play a system and players that spreads the goals around (which we do to be fair) .
23 Apr 2024 08:31:50
Amorin, no one is saying Nunez is above criticism but you're comparing your analysis of him to Keane's daft analysis of Haaland ?.
Keane gets very emotional sometimes. That is part of his appeal but it also means he comes out with stuff like he did about Haaland and like he did about de Gea and Maguire when United got beat against Spurs, I think.