BOOSTER: As two Liverpool players just sets record and sent a warning

Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah have already formed a powerful partnership for Liverpool

The opening goal in Liverpool’s 2-0 win against Everton was a classic Reds counter-attack. The move set a new Premier League record for the fastest goal scored from a woodwork into the end of the pitch.

While Mohamed Salah was no doubt grateful for the bizarre positioning of Blues goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, the Egyptian knew who he really owed his 100th league goal at Anfield. As his teammates swamped him for the Kop, Salah looked to break free to deliver one of his signature assist points to Darwin Nunez.

He was the one who had carried the ball for half court as he dodged challenges to bring it perfectly to Salah. He has remained a campaign theme and one that can certainly help Liverpool through the rest of the 2022/23 season.

Nunez now has four assists for the Reds, equaling the tally he recorded in his last season with Benfica. They’ve all scored goals for Salah, but considering he’s the Uruguayan’s most frequent teammate at Liverpool (along with Alisson Becker), he’s not surprising. Thanks to the No11’s impressive fitness record, Nunez played just 145 minutes for the Reds without Salah also being on the pitch.

The goals they scored also mostly came in the big games. Nunez assisted Salah against Fulham (on his Premier League debut), Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City (in the Carabao Cup) and Everton. With two first goals and two equalizers, these are all important goals.

Partly thanks to Nunez’s inconsistent form in front of goal, there were no assists in the opposite direction. However, OptaJoe recently revealed the duo have the best chance of creating a Premier League combination this season.

Although the assists only flowed in one direction, the partnership was quite close overall, with Salah creating 12 chances for Nunez and eight in the opposite direction.

By comparison, the combination of Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland creatively weighs in at 17-3 for the Belgian. The Reds pair were also Liverpool’s best pairing for generating clear chances in all competitions in 2022/23, with 13; the closest are Trent Alexander-Arnold and Nunez, with seven, and unsurprisingly all but one were right-back to forward.

With the pairing of the two forwards still in its infancy, it wouldn’t be a surprise if their potency cooled on a larger sample. Likewise, their relationship should improve with more time together and it’s not at all like they’ve played in the best version of Liverpool.

As OptaJoe pointed out, Nunez and Salah have combined this season to create a chance every 52 minutes in the league. The latter had only one partnership with the Reds who produced shots more often and that was with Daniel Sturridge (49 minutes by chance). However, the England international’s injuries were such that Salah shared the pitch with Nunez for a while.
Philippe Coutinho (one chance every 70 minutes) was the former Roma player’s next most productive duo, ahead of his efforts with Roberto Firmino (82), Sadio Mane (86), Luis Diaz (88) and all other Liverpool players you are interested in. is the name. Of the pairings with at least 1,000 minutes played, Nunez and Salah are the most common chances not only in the 2022/23 Premier League but also at Liverpool FC since the latter joined the club.

More importantly, the quality of chance was high. Of Liverpool’s 77 combinations to have created at least eight league chances since the summer of 2017, those from Nunez to Salah have the highest expected goal average at 0.27, while their opponents are fourth at 0.22 . The derby opener they produced might have been above average in that sense, but they’ve been doing something like that all season.