Darwin Nunez has just told Liverpool what needs to happen to complete transformation

Darwin Nunez’s struggles during the business end of the 2023/24 season for Liverpool were well-documented as he went on a lengthy goalscoring drought and eventually lost his starting place.

The Uruguayan scored just once from the Reds’ final 13 games of the season, and that was a strike he was unaware of when charging down an attempted clearance from Sheffield United goalkeeper Ivo Grbic. He would start just one of Liverpool’s last seven matches of the campaign in response to his loss of form, after being withdrawn prematurely in three successive outings following his last goal against the Blades.

Facing online abuse, scrutiny and criticism, the striker would delete his Liverpool-related images on his Instagram account, limit who can comment and block certain fan accounts after receiving backlash for one glaring miss in the 4-2 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at the start of May.

READ MORE: Mohamed Salah signed for Saudi club leaving Brazilian team-mate confused

READ MORE: Andy Robertson drops retirement hint in emotional interview as Liverpool return date clearer

Meanwhile, with Arne Slot also succeeding Jurgen Klopp in the Reds dugout, his future has been the subject of increased speculation as a result, even though it has been reported that the Dutchman wishes to retain the striker’s services.

But while Nunez might have floundered for Liverpool as their Premier League, Europa League and FA Cup challenges all came to a premature end, it’s a very different story for the Uruguayan on the international stage.

He has established himself as first-choice for his country since joining the Reds in a deal worth up to a club-record £85m in the summer of 2022. And in the aftermath of that winter’s tournament in Qatar, he has been in incredible form.

Nunez has won eight caps since the start of last season, starting in attack on each occasion. Uruguay have won six and lost just one of those matches, with the forward registering nine goals from his last six outings and a further three assists across the entirety of that run.

Such form has not been affected by his club struggles either, with the striker, who celebrates his 25th birthday this week, ending his goalscoring drought with a hat-trick in an international friendly win over Mexico earlier this month. He’d then follow it up with a spectacular first-time volley against Panama in the early hours of Monday morning (UK time) as Uruguay opened their Copa America campaign with a 3-1 victory.

Admittedly, it is a chance onlookers will have perhaps seen him squander many times at Liverpool over the past two years. While he has returned 33 goals and 17 assists from 96 appearances in all competitions, only Erling Haaland has spurned more than his 46 big chances missed in the Premier League during his Reds career to date.

But the Nunez of Uruguay is a completely different beast to the raw inconsistent animal seen at Liverpool. He’s confident, he’s happy and has picked up the mantle of Uruguay’s main man from Reds icon Luis Suarez.

“I feel like my home is when I am in the National Team,” he admitted to Por la jersey (Channel 10 of Uruguay), quoted by ESPN, earlier this year. “That's when you get together with your people, you can talk to everyone, and you feel comfortable in the National Team.

“My family is close too; Every time I go to the National Team I feel like I am at home.”

Evidently, Slot will need to find a way to make Liverpool feel just as homely for Nunez this season. But the striker is at least showing the right mentality in the face of the scrutiny he faces, as demonstrated by his mixed zone comments after Uruguay’s win over Panama, even if he let his head drop at times last season.

“It’s all good when I can score goals,” he said post-match. “In the end, I will always miss goals.

“If I’m going to make five or 10 mistakes then I’m going to try 11 times. That’s what a striker has to do. Not be worried when he misses five, he has to keep trying and never give up.

“If he gives up nothing will work out. So it’s always important to start off with a win, and we all know that the first game of a tournament is always difficult, but we got the result here this time and so we are really happy and now try to grow from here.”

Of his volley, he said: “I didn’t expect it. I thought Maxi Araujo headed it, but in the end luckily it stayed there. I didn’t think and said ‘Here I hit it’.”

Admittedly, such thinking is perhaps what let him down at times last season when he found himself repeatedly denied in front of goal. It shows how fine the margins are between success and failure. But when it clicks, instinctive players can explode.

Suarez has already pointed out the comparisons between himself and Nunez from his own early career, including his initial time at Liverpool.

"Since Darwin was in Penarol I had been talking to him, through someone else,” he told old AUF TV, quoted by ESPN. “There was a game in which he scored three goals that caught my attention.

“At that time it was said that he missed a lot of goals, but he also generated a lot. They criticised me for the same reason, but the important thing is that he always tried to overcome, he never gave up.

“I always saw special conditions in him. The forward has to be like that, the ambition, the desire to improve, the desire to get ahead of him.”

Suarez knows exactly what it takes to become an elite striker, having completed his own transformation at Anfield. And he is clearly confident Nunez can follow in his footsteps, having already insisted he is ‘one of the best centre forwards in the world’.

He has all the right attributes, that much is obvious. But now it’s up to his new head coach Slot to help him piece it all together for Liverpool. Having taken a nine-goal scoring run into the Copa America, Nunez has at least given the Dutchman the perfect place to start from.