For Darwin Nunez, May 2024 will feel all too familiar.

The Liverpool forward has, on paper at least, enjoyed a year of progress at Anfield. With 31 goal contributions, including 18 strikes in all competitions, he has already comfortably improved upon his maiden campaign at the club, when he scored 15 goals and was involved in 19 in total.

Such numbers clearly represent quiet improvement but as ever with Nunez, his Liverpool career has rarely been quiet.

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Indeed, this May appears similar to last year, when his playing time decreased and Klopp turned to more trusted and consistent players to see out Liverpool's season. In turn, the discussion surrounding Nunez's form has increased as the seemingly polarising nature of the forward leads to continued debate about his usefulness to the Reds.

Nunez's absence from the Liverpool team and the reaction to his poor form has led to him removing all images of the Reds from his Instagram profile and increased speculation surrounding his future.

And speculation reached fever pitch on Monday morning when some pointed out on social media that he'd not been seen clapping during Klopp's guard of honour or team talk, before footage emerged of the two dancing at the club's end of season party.

Indeed, the German was often thought to be Nunez's biggest supporter at Anfield, but with him now gone, the Uruguayan would be forgiven for thinking that this is as good as it gets on Merseyside.

But he might want to hang around a little longer and meet Klopp's successor, Arne Slot.

Because the Dutchman appears to have an uncanny ability to improve and get the best out of all the forward players he has worked with during his managerial career so far.

Indeed, you only need to glance at this season's Eredivisie top scorer chart to see evidence of Slot's work. Feyenoord's leading scorer this season, Mexican international Santiago Gimenez, who sits third behind Vangelis Pavlidis and Luuk de Jong on 23 goals for the season.

That marks his best scoring return of his career so far, and the numbers look more impressive when you consider he has 26 goals in all competitions so far, with eight assists and after netting 31 goals in 2023, he surpassed the most Eredivisie goals scored in a single calendar year - a record previously held by a certain Luis Suarez.

Before working with Slot, the Mexican had never even managed to break double figures for goals in a season.

And with 23 goals last year, Gimenez has largely carried the burden for Slot's side in past couple of years, but in his first campaign with Feyenoord, the Dutchman relied largely on a very different group of players.

Luis Sinisterra, now of Bournemouth, top scored for Feyenoord with 23 goals before a move to Leeds. He's not topped that tally before or since. Loanee Guus Til was two goals behind with 21 strikes, before returning to PSV, where he has scored 13 and 10 goals in the subsequent two seasons. Slot also helped guide Bryan Linssen to a career best 17 goals in all competitions.

It was a similar story at Slot's previous club AZ Alkmaar, where top scorers Oussama Idrissi (17 in 2019/20) and Myron Boadu (20 in 2019/20 and 15 in 2020/21) failed to live up to the same heights at moves to Sevilla and Ajax in Idrissi's case (though he did record seven strikes in a loan back with Slot at Feyenood last season) and Monaco for Boadu.

Slot also oversaw the rise of attacking midfielder Teun Koopmeiners, whose goal tallies of 16 and 17 in Slot's two seasons with Alkmaar led to a £8m transfer to Atalanta, where he was part of the team that dumped Liverpool out of the Europa League this season. The 26-year-old's impressive form and 15 goals this season have since seen him linked with a move to the Reds.

With an attacking philosophy that seeks to marry Klopp's high pressing style with a slightly shorter passing game (Slot is a huge admirer of Pep Guardiola), and instructions to his forwards and attacking midfielders to overload the opposition in the final third, but limits crosses from wider areas, Slot looks to create higher-quality chances for his attackers.

It's therefore no surprise that Slot's forwards tend to score a lot of goals, and with an attacking array of talent at Liverpool to choose from, he'll back himself to implement his philosophy at Anfield. Nunez, who has underperformed in the league by about -5 goals in terms of his Premier League xG, might well be best positioned to continue his slow improvement at Liverpool and not elsewhere next term.

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