A football match can be decided by any kind of goal. It might be a penalty, a rocket hit from 30 yards out or even an injury time header from a goalkeeper. We’ve seen them all.
There is no question that Opta-defined clear-cut (or ‘big’) chances determine games most frequently though. These are defined as shots in “a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range.”
If we disregard penalties, roughly one-in-seven shots is classified as a clear-cut-chance, but they account for just over half of all goals scored. Making the most of these golden opportunities is essential.
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Unfortunately for Liverpool, this is one of many areas in which they have struggled this season. The Reds have converted 31.3 per cent of their non-penalty big chances in the league, their lowest rate since 2011/12 and almost seven per cent below league average.
Things could be worse. With an average of 3.0 clear-cut chances per game, 2021/22 is the only campaign in the preceding 11 in which Liverpool had more. Having high value opportunities is more than half the battle.
For many players, their sample size is so small that it isn’t unusual for them to have a particularly hot or cold streak. At the time of writing only eight men have had at least 20 big chances this season and it is to the Reds’ credit that they are the only club with two of them.
However, Darwin Nunez (who is one, along with Mohamed Salah) is having one of the worst Premier League campaigns on record for converting clear-cut chances. In the last 12 seasons there have only been six instances of players matching the Uruguayan’s total of 23 non-penalty big chances while having a lower success rate with them. Luis Suarez in 2011/12 and Roberto Firmino in the title winning campaign are among them, so it’s an issue which has affected Liverpool forwards in the past.
There is a parallel to be drawn between another former striker at the club and Nunez. As with the whole team, it is positive that the former Benfica man is having so many clear-cut opportunities as goals should follow. Darwin is averaging 1.43 big chances per 90 minutes this term, the fifth most by anyone with at least 1,000 minutes in a season since the summer of 2011.
Erling Haaland is inevitably one example, while Gabriel Jesus was twice in this elite group with his former club. There’s only one other player who wasn’t representing Manchester City, though, and his name is Daniel Sturridge.
And he didn’t just have plenty of high value openings, but he converted them at a very healthy rate. Among the 25 players with at least 81 non-penalty clear-cut chances in the Premier League since 2011/12, Sturridge is ranked fourth for conversion rate, behind Wayne Rooney, Heung-min Son and Harry Kane. It’s early days for Nunez in England, but he is 20 per cent behind his Liverpool predecessor at present.
As chance would have it, Sturridge was at Stamford Bridge as a pundit for the recent meeting of two of his former clubs on Tuesday evening. At one point he was discussing the issues Chelsea’s forwards have had with finishing chances but what he said could equally apply to Nunez.
“When I was running through [on goal], I remember I used to sometimes speak to myself,” Sturridge said. “I’d be like: ‘relax, calm yourself down, breathe’, and then you just pick your spot. You train on the training pitch every single day to be in these moments and to be on auto-pilot,” he added.
It’s good advice. Nunez has often looked anything but calm when clean through on goal, with misses against the likes of Manchester City, Aston Villa and Brentford immediately springing to mind. He’s already having big chances about as often as Sturridge did at his peak; if he follows his example, he can dispatch them as effectively too.
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