The opening goal in Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Everton was a classic counter attack from the Reds. The move set a new Premier League record for the fastest goal following a woodwork hit at the other end of the pitch.
While Mohamed Salah was no doubt grateful for the bizarre positioning of Blues goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, the Egyptian knew who he really had to thank for his 100th league goal contribution at Anfield. As his teammates engulfed him in front of the Kop, Salah tried to break free to deliver one of his trademark assist points in the direction of Darwin Nunez.
It was he who had carried the ball half the length of the pitch while evading challenges in order to deliver it perfectly to Salah. It continued a theme of the campaign and one which can definitely help Liverpool over the remainder of the 2022/23 season.
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Nunez now has four assists for the Reds, equalling the total he posted in his final campaign with Benfica. They have all created goals for Salah, though as he has been the Uruguayan’s joint-most frequent Liverpool teammate (along with Alisson Becker) that isn’t surprising. Indeed, thanks to the number 11’s remarkable fitness record, Nunez has only played 145 minutes for the Reds without Salah also being on the pitch.
The goals they have fashioned have mostly occurred in big games too. Nunez assisted Salah against Fulham (in his Premier League debut), Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City (in the Carabao Cup) and Everton. With two opening goals and two equalisers, they’ve all been important strikes.
In part thanks to Nunez’s erratic form in front of goal, there have not been any assists in the opposite direction. However, OptaJoe recently revealed the duo have been the best chance creating combination in the Premier League this season.
While the assists have only flowed in one direction, it’s been a reasonably close partnership overall, with Salah creating 12 chances for Nunez with eight going in the opposite direction. As a comparison, the Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland combination is creatively weighted 17-3 to the Belgian. The Reds pair have also been comfortably Liverpool’s top partnership for generating clear-cut chances in all competitions in 2022/23, with 13; the next most is Trent Alexander-Arnold and Nunez, with seven, and unsurprisingly all-but-one of them have been from the right-back to the forward.
As the link-up of the two strikers is still in its relative infancy, it would not be a surprise if their potency cooled across a larger sample. Equally, their relationship should improve with further time together and it’s not as if they’ve been playing in the best version of Liverpool by any means.
As OptaJoe noted, Nunez and Salah have combined to create a chance every 52 minutes in the league this season. The latter has only had one partnership with the Reds which produced shots more frequently, and that was with Daniel Sturridge (49 minutes per chance). Such were the England international’s injury woes, though, that Salah has shared the pitch for longer with Nunez already.
The former Roma man’s next most productive pairing was with Philippe Coutinho (one chance every 70 minutes), ahead of his efforts with Roberto Firmino (82), Sadio Mane (86), Luis Diaz (88) and any other Liverpool player you care to name. Among pairings with at least 1,000 minutes Nunez and Salah aren’t just the most frequent chance creators in the 2022/23 Premier League but also at Liverpool since the latter joined the club.
Even more importantly, the chance quality has been high. Among the 77 Liverpool combinations to have created at least eight chances in the league since the summer of 2017, those from Nunez to Salah carry the highest average expected goal value of 0.27, with those going the other way ranked fourth at 0.22. The derby opener they produced might have been above average in this sense, but they’ve been doing this sort of thing all season.
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