Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez debut - the return of Andy Carroll or just a bad start?

Liverpool’s new €75 million signing Darwin Nunez made his first appearance for the Reds and it inspired concern rather than confidence.

Liverpool fans finally got a glimpse of their marquee summer signing Darwin Nunez but his 28-minute run-out did not particularly go as planned.

Liverpool looked several steps behind as expected in their first pre-season game which led to a 4-0 walloping at the hands of Manchester United which indicates this is not a Nunez problem.

In fact, there is not a problem at all, 28 minutes in a meaningless pre-season game is usually nothing to be worried about but Nunez’s was bad enough to at least invoke concern.

The Reds’ brand new red flag

Having established that it is way to early to even suggest that Darwin Nunez could be a Liverpool flop on the basis of his performance against United, it would be unwise to completely discard it as well.

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The player the Reds just splashed €75 million on blasted the ball well over a semi-open goal, fitness or not; that is a red flag…an expensive one at that.

That miss sent Football Twitter into a frenzy and while most of the flack directed towards Nunez was mostly either banter or unreasonably harsh, there was still some truth to it.

The Uruguayan international gave an all-around poor account of himself and he showed more similarities to Andy Carroll, another expensive Liverpool flop.

Andy Carroll reborn?

Beyond Nunez’s below-par Liverpool bow, the Anfield faithful have more reason to be suspicious of a potential flop which is deja vu.

This is not the first time Liverpool have spent a club-record fee on a tall striker with a ponytail and they regretted it the last time around.

On the transfer deadline day of January 2011, Liverpool shelled out 35 million great British Pounds to bring Andy Carroll to Anfield from Newcastle.

Let’s not rehash bad memories for the Kop, we all remember how badly that went and he would only last18 months at the club.

Perhaps it is a tad unfair to compare Nunez to Carroll after just one game but it is a route worth exploring for anyone who watched those 28 dreadful minutes in Singapore.