When it comes to the composition of their squad, what is most important to a manager? Do they want a variety of skills and options, enabling them to select their starting XI to exploit the weaknesses of the opposition side? Or would they prefer a roster of identikits, leaving them able to change one player for another without the performance of the team dropping?
The answer, inevitably, is that a bit of both would be a good starting point. For Jurgen Klopp and his front three, this wasn't really an issue for five seasons. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it.
Between the summers of 2017 and 2022, Liverpool was able to field Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah for near enough every match. They were almost always available to play, they worked supremely well as a trio and - the merits of cult hero Divock Origi aside - there was nobody waiting in the wings who deserved to oust them from the side.
In 2023/24, the Reds do not have an established threesome for the front of the team. The club will do well to match the Salah-Firmino-Mane triumvirate ever again in truth. But what it does possess now is five forwards of a broadly similar standard, which offers Klopp 10 potential trios without a drop-off in standard.
Of course, that assumes Salah might not play and history shows that is unlikely. Liverpool has played 236 Premier League matches since he joined and the Egyptian has failed to play a part in just 10 of them. If the Africa Cup of Nations were not mid-season, that number would be even lower.
Even so, that leaves Klopp with six possible combinations of forwards for the other two berths. A look at the key underlying metric for forwards (shots) shows how Darwin Nunez stands apart from his positional peers.
The chart in the above tweet highlights the difference between the former Benfica man and the four other forwards at Klopp's disposal. The x-axis displays the shots per 90 minutes rate for players in the Premier League this season, with their goals per 90 plotted on the y-axis.
As the names are not displayed, the quintet of Reds forwards have been linked with a line. The trio of Cody Gakpo, Diogo Jota and Salah are within a range of just 0.11 shots per 90, with Luis Diaz only twice that margin behind the latter. Klopp could pick any three from those four and be confident of getting nine shots in total from them.
But then look at Nunez, the shooting star out on the edge of this constellation, averaging 4.9 shots per 90 this season (and it's Newcastle's Callum Wilson who is closest to him, in case you're wondering). As this rate is what Erling Haaland was last seen posting in the shallow waters of the Austrian Bundesliga, Nunez's figure will almost inevitably drop once he has seen more game time this season.
Wherever you are in the world - in the US, the UK or further afield - you don't want to miss out.
But Nunez's shot frequency has now risen year-on-year for all five campaigns for which FBRef carries his data. His chance quality (non-penalty expected goals per shot) has gone from 0.14 in 2022/23 to 0.16 this season too, which is no mean feat when shot volume is also rising.
If you define the Liverpool front three as the three forwards who got the most minutes, something else of interest reveals itself for the last seven seasons. For 2023/24, the trio would currently be Diaz, Nunez and Salah, with the Uruguayan taking 45.6 per cent of their collective shots per 90. The closest player to that mark was Salah in his debut campaign (44.1), a season in which he scored 32 league goals and 44 in all competitions.
Given he plays less and blows hot and cold in front of goal, it would be ludicrous to expect Nunez to deliver similar numbers. But his underlying data suggests he potentially offers similar influence when given the chance. Perhaps Klopp's front three selection dilemma should now be reduced to picking one of the three players battling for a single spot in the team.