13 hours ago
4
Stop getting Darwin Núñez wrong! At the very least, can we please stop comparing him unfavourably with Andy Carroll. This should be taken as a general cease-and-desist plea from those of us with an interest in preserving the Carroll legacy. But it also feels like an important note of distinction in a week when Arne Slot has unexpectedly made Núñez into a person of interest in the Premier League title race by dwelling on his now-famous miss against Aston Villa.
There may be sound internal reasons for this. Slot is very shrewd. The season has so far been an exercise in control and smart judgment. But from the outside, telling Núñez off in public feels unnecessary at this late stage, like shoehorning jeopardy into the third act of a generic Hollywood movie, the needless car chase four-fifths of the way through Paddington 5: Paddington Harder.
Possibly, and all conclusions will as ever be outcome-based, this will end up being a significant mistake. But it’s also interesting in its own right, and for various reasons.
First the Núñez/Carroll dynamic. This comparison is purely visual. Both are tall and have slick dark ponytails in the “Croydon facelift” style. The music press used to do this a lot, grouping bands together on the basis of hairstyles. Núñez-as-Carroll is like listing both Spandau Ballet and Soft Cell as New Romantics in the early 1980s.
Both had quiffy, feathery haircuts. But watching an early Spandau Ballet performance is like being jostled by angry handsome plumbers shouting Marvin Gaye songs. Whereas listening to Marc Almond is like perching on a stool in a basement bar while a skinny, unsettling man sings Jacques Brel-style torch ballads dressed only in a metal codpiece and nipple clamps. Both good. Both with good hair. But contrasting vibes.
In football terms the key difference between Núñez and Carroll is spatial and range-based. Carroll at his best was a set of powerful and surprisingly precise patterns enacted in a small space. Núñez, by contrast, is about creating space with unpredictable movements over a much larger area.
Carroll was a footballer of the skies, which led to him being compared to many things during his career. The carcass of an ox siege-catapulted over the castle walls. A mattress thrown from a balcony on to a crowded dancefloor. But his best moments were at close-quarters and precise, from the famous header for England against Sweden at Euro 2012, perfect spatial awareness, elite neck-muscle flex, to those overhead kicks where he seemed somehow to have turned the rest of the world upside-down while he remained static, a foot suddenly where his head used to be, a miracle of explosive control in a very narrow range.
Núñez operates at ground level, and more expansively. There was the goal at Brentford last season where he ran 60 yards, just eating the space, and produced a finish so absurdly out-there, a floating miracle-scoop on the move, that it seemed to really upset people, to say, yes, this is frankly unsustainable. This season he produced a winning turn at the same ground when he came late into a tight, settled game and broke it open with his more random angles.
And now we have this, Wednesday night, That Miss, and Slot’s decisions to dwell on it as a significant note after the game. Is this a sign of being rattled? Probably not. Slot is super-smart. Dutch people often just say things. There may have been a dressing room imperative to employ the nuclear option of going public. Maybe being rattled is OK anyway. Football is rattling. People who win also get rattled. We just don’t hold it against them for years on the internet.
Slot was also very clear it was Núñez’s perceived lack of effort afterwards that bothered him, not the miss itself. This makes sense. A Núñez who gets discouraged when he misses is basically a 1% Núñez, the butterfly-lifespan Núñez. This person cannot exist on a football pitch.
On the other hand is it actually wise to do this when everyone out there is looking for cracks and signs of stress, a plateauing that could, in the broadcasters’ most fevered dreams, turn into a choke-based entertainment vehicle? If Slot really doesn’t want that moment to “get in his head”, how is hearing his manager talk about it going to help with this?
The real objection is that to raise it in public seems to miss what Núñez’s role is going to be in a successful title run with 12 games to go and the need to just not collapse. Asking him to be hyper-professional, shaming him in public. Is it the moment? In this situation Núñez is the spirit animal, the hype man, the goodwill mascot, there at the end, beaming and dancing and firing a champagne cork into his own eye.
Núñez is also the only part of the entity Slot inherited from Jürgen Klopp that doesn’t really work properly, which adds a slight note of ingratitude. It is important to be clear at this stage. Núñez has not been a success. His transfer fee remains an absurdity.
It hasn’t all been bad. He was good last season when Mohamed Salah was injured. But he is also a player who spends a lot of time sprinting away from the game, making all the right runs, just not necessarily in the right order. He misses a lot. He doesn’t have that ice-cold filter. He isn’t a good fit in a high-precision team. The Darwin-verse is a looser, chancier place. It makes him great fun to watch as a neutral, exhilarating and maddening if you’re a supporter, and a one-man heart attack if you’re his manager.
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As a result he has often been treated as a toxic inheritance, nobody really wanting to take the rap for signing him. The former Liverpool data analyst Ian Graham wrote an interesting book about his time at the club called How To Win the Premier League. Sadio Mané (massive success) is mentioned 50 times, Salah (even massiver success) 41 times and Lionel Messi (random, but great brand recognition) 129 times. Darwin, who was signed on his watch: zero times.
But then, Graham has a job to do and a company to promote, not to mention his Pitch Control model designed to “mathematically understand the game the way a professional footballer understands it”, which isn’t really going to fit here. Throw your calculator down the stairs and then stamp on it. This is the best way into the maths of Darwin’s game.
Graham has pointed out in interviews that it was Klopp who made the call on Núñez based on two good performances against Liverpool. And in fairness he also admits that the data said yes, that the model had him as “one of the best young strikers in the world”.
This is also significant. In many ways Núñez-to-Liverpool is a victim of modern metrics. What we have here is a set of elite physical attributes crowbarred into the outline of an elite footballer. Take his top speed, his distances covered, a rare combination of height, pace and agility. Add one good goalscoring season. It kind of makes sense in a Klopp attack, although not in a Slot team, where picking Núñez is like living in an immaculate 17th-floor apartment with an overexcited labrador who won’t stop knocking over your laptop, spraying the Barcelona chair with mud, drinking out of the toilet.
This is also why Núñez is so much fun to watch. Modern football can be tediously risk-averse and systems-based. Perhaps the real lesson of Núñez is that building a team or trying to understand talent should never go too far one way into either data or feelings. An old-school Kenny Dalglish-style sniff test would probably save you from signing Núñez. The data wanglers could stop you spending £30m on Carroll.
There is still a place for Núñez in this world. Probably he should be at a less overclass club, using his energy to disrupt more orderly teams. He may even end up winning Liverpool the league this season in a more arms-length kind of way. There is no doubt Arsenal would be a more potent team right now if they’d taken a chance and splashed out on a goalscorer.
Why didn’t they? Because data says this is a risky move that often doesn’t pay? Hmm. And who is the most persuasive current example of this, living proof that when in doubt it’s better to save your money and go for control? Clue: he’s tall and has a ponytail.
This is perhaps a stretch. For now, 12 games from the end, there is surely more to be gained from taking it steady with Núñez, from tickling his neck and just making him feel good.
