soccer
Darwin Nuñez - the Premier League’s fastest ever player?
Liverpool’s Darwin Nuñez was reported to have become the Premier League’s fastest-ever player this week but new data suggests otherwise
“He only played 57 minutes but he was just mad and fun. People will criticise him for occasionally miscontrolling or shooting wildly but he’s such an agent of chaos. Liverpool were noticeably less effective once he went off.” This is how football statistician and journalist Duncan Alexander described Darwin Nuñez’s midweek performance for Liverpool against West Ham United, in which the attacker scored the only goal, when appearing on The Athletic’s Totally Football Show.
Darwin Nuñez an influential attacking threat for Liverpool
Since joining the Anfield outfit in the summer, Nuñez has certainly proved to be in interesting addition to the club and to the Premier League itself. Although the Uruguayan has yet to fully establish himself as the Reds’ starting centre-forward, he has already demonstrated his attacking threat, as highlighted by various statistics published by UK broadcaster Sky Sports.
For all players who have played more than 200 minutes in the league this season, Nuñez leads the way for shots taken per 90 minutes, touches in the opposition box per 90 minutes, percentage of touches in the opposition box per 90 minutes and non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes.
In addition, he ranks second for ‘fast breaks’, which leads us nicely to another statistic that has been doing the rounds after Liverpool’s midweek win over the Hammers.
Kyle Walker still the Premier League’s fastest man
In an otherwise unremarkable 1-0 victory for Jürgen Klopp’s side, it was reported by many that Nuñez had set a new Premier League speed record, hitting a top speed which was initially reported as 38km/h (23.61mph), more than the 37.802km/h (23.49mph) clocked by Kyle Walker in Manchester City’s match against Chelsea in June 2020.
This, had it been true, would have made the striker the fastest player in Premier League history.
However, Sports data and analytics firm StatsPerform have since revealed that that was not in fact the case, with Walker still leading the way. Nuñez is, though, the fastest player in the Premier League this season, although his top speed of 36.5km/h (22.68mph) was recorded on the opening weekend of the campaign against Fulham and not in Wednesday’s game.
Nuñez leads the fastest players in the 2022-23 Premier League
| Player | Club | Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Darwin Nuñez | Liverpool | 36.5 km/h / 22.68 mph |
| Gabriel Martinelli | Arsenal | 35.9 km/h / 22.31 mph |
| Diogo Dalot | Manchester United | 35.8 km/h / 22.25 mph |
| Allan Saint-Maximin | Newcastle United | 35.7 km/h / 22.18 mph |
| Jack Stacey | Bournemouth | 35.6 km/h / 22.12mph |
According to further StatsPerform data, Nuñez’s top speed this term is behind that reached last season by ex-Chelsea man Antonio Rüdiger, 2021-22′s fastest sprinter, Liverpool’s Mohammed Salah and Adama Traoré of Wolves.
Usain Bolt’s top speed in setting current 100m world record
As a point of comparison, the International Association of Athletics Federations analysed the performance of sprinter Usain Bolt when he set the world 100m record at the 2009 Athletics World Championships in Berlin, discovering that he reached a top speed of 44.16km/h (27.44mph).
In the data age, there are so many statistics flying around that it can be difficult to know which ones are fact and which are fiction. But we can confirm that although Darwin Nuñez is not quite the Premier League’s fastest ever man, he is the fastest this season…so far.