Darwin Nunez: Fabinho drawing on early Liverpool struggles to help new signing settle

Fabinho has revealed that he is speaking with new Liverpool signing Darwin Nunez to offer his advice about settling at Anfield.

The Reds agreed a deal worth up to £85m to sign Nunez this summer but the 22-year-old has endured a slow start to his life at Liverpool, failing to impress during his first two appearances of pre-season and already attracting a lot of criticism from rival fans.

It's a similar situation to that of Fabinho, whose struggles immediately following his move from Monaco in 2018 are well-known. The midfielder eventually figured things out and is now widely seen as one of the best in his position - he predicts a similar recovery for Nunez at Liverpool.

“Things are really different now but it was hard for me at the start with the adaptation,” he told The Athletic.

“That’s why whenever we sign a new player I always try to help him as much as possible. Like Darwin now, his English isn’t very good, so I’m always trying to help him in training by explaining some situations to him.

“When I first came to Liverpool, [Roberto] Firmino and [Alberto] Moreno were really important for me. They helped me to settle in. I try to support new players now in the same way as those boys supported me.”

He added: “Darwin may need a bit of time to adapt, let’s see, but a player like him can really change a team.

“He’s a proper number nine. He’s a goal-scorer. He scored in both games against us in the Champions League. We know how good he is. Even though we lost Sadio, I still believe that we can fight for everything. The team is still really strong.

“For a long time it was always Sadio on the left side. But we have Luis [Diaz] on the left side and we saw how well he played in the second half of last season. Luis will become increasingly important.”