Liverpool’s £4m flop is outscoring Darwin Nunez in 24/25

Liverpool have dropped points in their past two away matches in the Premier League, against Everton and Aston Villa respectively.

In fact, the Reds have drawn half of their eight top-flight fixtures in 2025, though hold a sizeable eight-point lead over second-place Arsenal, who do have a game in hand.

Arne Slot has worked wonders since taking the helm last summer, with Liverpool also into the Carabao Cup final and the last 16 of the Champions League, waiting for the draw that will confirm either Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica as their opponents.

Liverpool have looked good across the park, but up front, they have torn teams to shreds when on their a-game. It’s not all been rosy up top, however, with one man in particular flattering to deceive.

Let’s have a look at Liverpool’s recent history with number nines.

Liverpool’s strikers over the past decade

Luis Suarez was probably Liverpool’s last true superstar before Brendan Rodgers’ dismissal. Steven Gerrard, of course, still played, but he was ageing. Suarez left for Barcelona just over a decade ago after his 31-goal Premier League term wasn’t enough to steer over the title-winning line.

The pretty penny claimed for his sale led to the likes of Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli, both of whom flattered to deceive. Daniel Sturridge was already part of the crew but endured injury problems in waves as he struggled to reclaim that sparkling form of 2013/14.

Christian Benteke followed, joining from Aston Villa for about £32.5m in 2015 and scoring nine goals over 29 league games before departing for £27m in Klopp’s first summer transfer window. It was ruthless, but the right move.

Mohamed Salah isn’t a centre-forward but he’s one of the Anfield side’s greatest-ever goalscorers, creeping up the all-time charts. He’s joined by Diogo Jota right now but played with Divock Origi in the early days of his Reds career, a man immortalised in Merseyside history.

Premier League – Record Goalscorers
Rank	Player	Apps	Goals
1.	Alan Shearer	441	260
2.	Harry Kane	320	213
3.	Wayne Rooney	491	208
4.	Andy Cole	414	187
5.	Sergio Aguero	275	184
6.	Mohamed Salah	289	181
Stats via Premier League

Then, of course, Jurgen Klopp led the signing of Benfica’s Darwin Nunez, bringing him in for a club-record £85m fee. He’s ebbed and flowed across the three years, but seems to have bitterly regressed under Slot’s wing and could be facing a departure this summer.

Darwin Nunez in 24/25

We know for sure that the Saudi Arabian-based interest in Nunez’s signature was genuine last month. Fabrizio Romano said so.

However, Al-Nassr ended up signing Jhon Duran instead, ending a free-scoring breakout campaign in Europe and moving to the Gulf in a deal worth £71m.

The fact remains that Liverpool’s expensive striker is looking likely for sale at the end of the season. With just six goals and five assists across the campaign, he’s fallen heavily by the wayside.

The fact that a 37-year-old Liverpool flop is outscoring him only adds insult to injury.

The Liverpool flop who’s outscoring Nunez

Liverpool have had modern focal frontmen of all shapes and sizes, but there’s one who left almost a decade ago and has since built themselves up to be a high-class goalscorer back in their Spanish homeland.

The man in question is Iago Aspas, who might be in the ostensible twilight phase of his career but remains a steady scorer in La Liga.

Aspas left Celta Vigo to sign for Rodgers’ Liverpool for £9m in 2013, having notched 19 goal contributions from 32 top-flight fixtures before moving to England in Los Celestes’ first campaign out of the second tier.

His time on English shores didn’t work out, making just five starting appearances in the Premier League as he was minnowed by the likes of Suarez and Sturridge. Furthermore, Aspas didn’t manage to score in the division, bagging his lonely Liverpool goal against Oldham Athletic in the FA Cup.

Liverpool knew rather quickly that the homesick forward wasn’t going to make it in the long run, and so he was sold back to Celta for around £4m in 2015 after spending the 2014/15 campaign on loan with Sevilla, where he won the Europa League.

Rodgers thought he saw something and in some ways has seen his decision vindicated by the attacker’s consistency over so many years in Spain, hitting double figures in La Liga across eight of the past ten campaigns.

He could make that nine with a rich burst of form over the coming months. Aspas is approaching the final year of his long journey but he’s still playing a part as the captain of his 14th-place outfit, having posted seven goals and three assists from 17 appearances.

This, rather embarrassingly, is more than Nunez’s haul for Liverpool in the Premier League this year: four goals from 24 games. The Uruguayan also only has six goals in total in all competitions.

To highlight further how impressive this record is, Aspas has only started 13 of the 17 league matches he has played this season, contributing toward his ranking among the top 14% of forwards across Europe’s top five leagues over the past year for goals scored (0.48) per 90, as per FBref.

He’s not as mobile as he once was, naturally, but the former Spain international shows intelligence and dynamism that frankly Nunez is unable to offer.

Emphasising this, Aspas has completed 59% of his dribbles in La Liga this term, as per Sofascore, only completing 1.2 dribbles every two games but proving match smarts in knowing when to put his foot on the gas.

Nunez, in contrast, has completed only 40% of his ball-carrying attempts in England this year, down from 43% last season and a more respectable 49% average in his maiden year. It’s simply not good enough, and indicative of his slump.

In front of goal, Nunez is not missing that many chances this season, but this serves as more as a barometer of Nunez’s decreased impact at the front of the ship, averaging 1.2 shots per Premier League match this term after firing 3.0 per outing last year, as per Sofascore.

Slot is a strong proponent of fluidity and interchangeability. He likes his Liverpool side to work hard and attack with ferocity. Nunez, in a way, embodies part of this.

He is hard-working and difficult to combat from a defensive standpoint. However, his lack of self-belief and composure in front of goal has unravelled all of the good work.

The simple fact is that Liverpool’s club-record centre-forward shouldn’t be being outscored by an ageing veteran in Aspas.

The 37-year-old flopped at Anfield and did so well to build a successful career in Spain thereafter, but if his superiority in 2024/25 isn’t a sign that Nunez needs to go – what is?