Football enthusiasts around the world eagerly anticipate the start of the new Premier League season ahead.
Much will be at stake in a year that promises a lot of football including the prestigious World Cup, which for the first time will be held in Qatar, and even more surprisingly the games will be played in November.
Players will want to impress their national team coach and club coach in a bid to concretize their spot in their team’s first 11.
The Premier League opening day kickoff is fast approaching
The EPL kicks off on August 5, 2022, with one game, Crystal Place tackling Arsenal at Selhurst Park.
Several players have moved around the league, while there will be some fresh faces joining the party. Wherever they are at the end of the roll of a dice, they are expected to shine and improve their respective team.
Five players in the Premier League that will have a point to prove are:
- The new sheriff in town Darwin Nunez of Liverpool
- The prolific Erling Haaland who is now with Manchester City
- The lukewarm Jadon Sancho at Manchester United
- The efficient Gabriel Jesus at Arsenal
- The trusted Raheem Sterling at Chelsea
Discussing each Premier League player’s point in-depth…
🚨 NEW: Jurgen Klopp and his staff have been more than satisfied with what they’ve seen from Darwin Nunez so far. They loved his movement and his ability to get away from defenders and find pockets of space. #lfc [the athletic] pic.twitter.com/scRRIi76qi
— Anfield Watch (@AnfieldWatch) July 20, 2022
Darwin Nunez: Will Mane Be Missed by Liverpool?
Nunez, an exciting player from Benfica who scored twice against Liverpool in last season’s Champions League was scooped up by them for a price tag of €64 million plus add-ons that will take it up to €75 million. Nunez will replace Sadio Mane and is backed by his manager to better the exploits of the Senegalese.
Despite playing in a weaker side than Liverpool, Nunez’s 1 in 3 goal conversion was the best in Europe’s top five leagues last season. Nunez is very instinctive and powerful, coupled with his bullish mentality, he can turn half chances into goals.
Nunez scored 48 goals in 85 games for Benfica and was the Golden Boot winner of the Premiera Liga in Portugal after scoring 26 goals. Though he is predominantly a right-sided player he is comfortable scoring with both feet. His dribbling is agogly successful and only Kareem Benzema has more successful dribbles than him across Europe’s top five leagues.
He is not insanely skillful but has pace and enough trickery to wrong-foot a defender to leave him looking silly. The Reds have two of the best wing-backs in modern football: Trent-Alexander Arnold and Andy Robertson. Nunez’s aerial ability will earn him loads of goalscoring opportunities with those two wing-backs; they have both managed double figures in assists in previous seasons.
Nunez’s acquisition may force Jurgen Klopp to alter his system to a 4-3-2-1 instead of his customary 4-3-3. This could see Nunez playing like a wing forward, center forward, pull-out forward, or a target man. This means Klopp will no longer use a false 9. However, he may use Fabio Carvalho as a number 10 or Jordan Henderson as a box-to-box midfielder to offer creativity from the middle.
Nunez is compared to a former Reds, Fernando Torres, with similar stature and explosiveness and is expected to deliver like the Spaniard they dubbed “El Nino“. Nunez’s pacing and link-up play seem to be his weakest areas, but Klopp is a genius at what he does and can improve Nunez in this capacity. Nunez is no Gabriel Batistuta, Didier Drogba nor a Diego Costa but he is expected to set the English top flight on fire.