Liverpool star ‘like a new signing’ as Crouch lauds Klopp’s ‘confidence player’ and £100m teammate
Peter Crouch thinks one of Liverpool’s attackers is going to be “like a new signing” this season after his stellar start to the new campaign.
The Premier League giants are spoiled for choice in attacking areas as Jurgen Klopp currently has Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez to choose from.
Nunez joined Liverpool last summer as they paid an initial fee of around £64m to sign him from Benfica.
The 24-year-old proved last season that he is still pretty raw but he is a natural goalscorer and he scored 15 goals for Liverpool across all competitions during his debut season.
Despite this, Nunez received criticism for some of his performances as he was wasteful during some of his appearances.
Nunez has enjoyed a dream start to the new campaign, though. He has grabbed two goals and an assist in Liverpool’s first four Premier League games.
After the forward scored a matchwinning brace against Newcastle United, Crouch has compared himself to Nunez, who is “like a new signing”.
“[The parallels] were similar, he didn’t go 18 games [without scoring] though!” Crough told The Daily Mail.
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“There were the odd misses and he felt quite raw at times. I did see a small comparison [to himself] but he was ahead of me at that stage.
“My drought was much longer than his. I do think he scored goals but there was always that element where it was, “Is he right? Will he do it?”. He came in the same window as Haaland and it was “Who is better?” Haaland had this amazing start and Nunez was falling foul of that, that comparison I felt. This year, that’s all gone. It’s a new season, he’s scoring goals and you will really see the real Darwin Nunez.
“The thing with him is that he was scoring goals last year, there were times where he did look out of sorts. Now he looks full of confidence. With the Newcastle game, when you win games like that in the manner that you did, kind of on your own, the finishes were top class. It’s confidence and he looks like a confidence player.
“Given that opportunity and that year to settle, it’s like a new signing almost and I feel the same with Luiz Diaz. He’s a £100m player and Liverpool didn’t have him last year. I feel there’s a feel-good factor and I’m hoping that continues.”