Darwin Núñez is an underrated dribbler and gave a hint of what he can offer in Liverpool’s win against LASK. The Reds need to use that attacking threat more frequently.

With the players Jürgen Klopp has at his disposal, you would think that Liverpool would complete far more dribbles than it does. After five match weeks of the 2023/24 Premier League season, the Reds rank joint-ninth in the division for successful take-ons, and joint-12th for success percentage.

You might assume a team with Luis Díaz and Mohamed Salah alone would perform better than that, but it is not the case. While it’s important to remember we’re talking about dribbles or take-ons in the sense of going past an opponent rather than simply carrying the ball, the nifty footwork offered by many members of the Liverpool squad should see the side perform better in this area.

But then it has been this way for years, so perhaps the relative lack of dribbling is somewhat intentional. It wouldn’t hurt to add a new dimension to their attacking play, though, and there was a hint of it in the Reds’ 3-1 victory over LASK on Thursday.

You can count the times a Liverpool player has completed a take-on in the opposition penalty area in a league game this season on one hand. You wouldn’t even need all your fingers, and your thumb could have a day off too.

In the 3-1 win against Bournemouth, Diogo Jota achieved the feat twice and showed the value of doing so. The Portuguese forward dribbled past Marcos Senesi on his way to teeing up Díaz for his acrobatic equalizing goal, later carrying the ball past the same defender again to have a shot on target himself.

The only other instance occurred in the 97th minute of the recent victory at Wolves, with debutant Ryan Gravenberch going past Hugo Bueno but the own goal scorer recovering to prevent the former Bayern Munich man from taking a shot. There have been other attempted take-ons in the box, obviously, but just three have been completed.

Liverpool bettered their total from the Premier League in the space of 41 second-half minutes in Austria. The lower standard of opposition no doubt helped, but according to Opta, LASK is of a similar standard to a promotion-chasing Championship side. Plenty of top-flight strugglers gave the Reds problems last season, especially when on their own patch.