If Liverpool's plan for a mid-season training camp in Dubai was largely dictated by the location of the World Cup, only one player involved in Qatar will really feel the benefit of that decision.
Darwin Nunez's first taste of the World Cup was bittersweet. It would no doubt have been a dream come true for the Uruguay international to lead the line alongside the iconic Luis Suarez in Doha, but the Liverpool strikers past and present endured an indifferent time.
Nunez was involved in one particularly sweeping move to help set up Giorgian de Arrascaeta in La Celeste's 2-0 win over Ghana in the final group stage fixture, but it was a generally frustrating time for the the Reds star and the Uruguayans in general as they were eliminated in dramatic fashion. South Korea's advancement on the metric of goals scored will likely rankle for some time for the South American nation.
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Jurgen Klopp has granted those at the World Cup a week off before they are asked to report for duty but the timing of the Reds' flight out to Dubai meant that Nunez was given closer to a fortnight away to recharge with his family.
The £64m striker was back at training on Monday and has since been enjoying the sights and sounds of this particularly luxurious region, having taken part in a team bonding session out in the Dubai desert on Wednesday evening.
The ECHO has seen first hand this week how Nunez has been around the camp. He has been in a relaxed mood and enjoying the facilities at Liverpool's stunning team hotel while also taking in the details of what has been described as a trip focused more on tactical work over any real fitness building at the NAS Complex.
Analysis meetings have been designed to correct some of the tactical shortcomings of the first half of the campaign during Liverpool's near fortnight-long stay in the Middle East ahead of a crucial few months, not only for the season, but for medium-term future of the club's ability to compete at the top end of the table, given the financial riches that would be spurned by missing out on Champions League qualification.
"Look, first of all, it's great to have Darwin back with us," says Andy Robertson in an exclusive chat with the ECHO at the club's Dubai base. "It was a disappointing World Cup for him. You could see how desperate they were to go through and to go out in the final group game is always difficult. But he's had a break now with his family and he's here with us, he looks refreshed and he looks good to go."
It's difficult to truly assess Nunez's first few months at Anfield. An exciting work-in-progress is perhaps the sum of it to date. Arriving as an initial £64m striker, Liverpool could yet end up paying as much as £85m for him. The £21m worth of add-ons is the most the Reds have ever agreed to lay out for further down the line, but some of those figures involve achievements like winning the Champions League and Premier League.
Senior Anfield sources expect Nunez to at least equal the £75m club-record fee they paid for Virgil van Dijk in January 2018, with much of that being appearance-based for someone who only turned 23 in June just after he'd penned a six-year contract.
Planting a headbutt on Crystal Palace's Joachim Andersen around an hour into his Anfield debut was most certainly ill-advised in August and that set him back in his Premier League adjustment, given he was forced to sit out the following three matches that included the risible loss at Manchester United.
At times, the touches have been loose, the finishing sloppy and the hold-up play weak. But at increasingly frequent junctures prior to the break, Nunez has started to display all the qualities that made Klopp, to one quote one source, "fall in love" with the striker during the analysis of Benfica last season.
It's nine goals in 18 appearances across all competitions now, which is an impressive return for a relatively inexperienced striker still making his way in a new country, where a language barrier exists, with a young family.
Robertson adds: "For me, when you look at the stats and what Darwin has done, I think he's been pretty successful. I get why people fixate on transfer fees and stuff like that but for us, as players, it's frustrating because we don't pick the fees. I don't sit here and say I am an X-million pound player or whatever, it's just what price the club is willing to pay for you.
"So for us, as players, we forget about money. That's up to clubs, up to agents to sort and we can't control that as players. And obviously when you have a big price-tag on your head, with the way football works, there's expectations and things like that but I think he has scored goals and he's looked the part."
Perhaps, in a way, perceptions of Nunez have been skewed by an inauspicious start to Liverpool life at a time when Erling Haaland was in blistering form down the other end of the M62 for Manchester City. The Norwegian's incredible few months at the Etihad places him on 23 goals for the campaign already in all competitions.
An interesting detail - if the respective careers of Nunez and Haaland must be eternally entwined in the Premier League - is the Liverpool striker has seven non-penalty goals to his apparent rival's one since October 9. The reality, however, is that real comparisons do the Reds man no favours as he aims to settle in properly.
Peter Crouch knows all about the demands placed on a new striker arriving at Liverpool. Rafa Benitez's side were the champions of Europe when he made the £7m switch from Southampton in the summer of 2005.
The former England striker famously endured a goal drought that lasted 1229 minutes as a Liverpool player before it was put to bed against Wigan in December of that year.
Crouch, who won the FA Cup and scored 42 times in his 134 appearances, went on to firmly establish himself as a fan favourite, but he knows full well about the pressure and the expectations placed on you as a centre-forward when you sign on the dotted line at Anfield.
"Listen, I like Nunez as a forward," Crouch tells the ECHO. "I watched an awful lot of him in Portugal covering the Champions League games and he was always a threat.
"So I thought he would be a good signing at the time. He looks a little bit like he's still finding his feet. I know the goals have been coming, but I think it will be a long-term plan with him.
"If he can get to double figures this season, which it looks like he will do, it would be considered a good return and I think he will only get better and better in time.
"It's a bit of a strange one so far this season for Liverpool in general. I think people are forgetting that last season was a superhuman effort, wasn't it? Getting to the final of every single competition they were involved in and to run Man City - who are one of the best teams we've ever seen - down to just one point in the Premier League too.
"I think there was always going to be a slight hangover from that. I think losing Sadio Mane is an issue, obviously he was such a legend at the club and I think that has been a factor. There's been some fatigue and some injuries and that coincided with some players in a bad run of form.
"But I feel like they are getting back to where they were. I feel that they will have a big say in the second half of the season. Hopefully no-one comes back with any major injuries, but I still think Liverpool are a top side even if they have been a bit indifferent so far."
Having had the best part of a full week of training this week, Nunez will return to action for Liverpool in Friday's Dubai Super Cup friendly with AC Milan. With Diogo Jota still sidelined for the foreseeable and Luis Diaz set for an absence of three months after undergoing knee surgery this week, the chance for Nunez to really push on is there in front of him. Klopp's needs him to take it too given the lack of real options now.
"Darwin is quick, he is powerful, he's got an eye for goal and nobody can argue that," Robertson says of his team-mate. "Yes, he's needed time to settle in and he's needed time to adapt to how we play and adapt to just a different lifestyle as well.
"He's been learning a new language and trying to get his young family to settle in and things like that, so it's difficult. So when you look at all that, he's done really well so far in the first couple of months. Yes, he will be looking for more and yes, we will be looking for more, but I think the start that he has had has been successful and there's no doubt he will be a top, top player.
"He will be a top player for Liverpool and yes, he has only joined up on Monday but this week will help him massively but with the video analysis team and being able to play a game against AC Milan. He will be ready to go and I enjoyed the last couple of games playing with him on the left-hand side and I thought me, him and Thiago linked up really well on the left.
"We looked dangerous and Darwin looked dangerous on the left and he can also play through the middle as well, so he gives us that versatility; through the middle, left and right. So he will be a big player for us. He already has been for us and I am sure he will be in the second part of the season too."
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