The eye-catching result in the Premier League on Saturday was Brighton & Hove Albion’s win over Liverpool. We shouldn’t be surprised. Brighton are brilliant under Roberto De Zerbi, as they were Graham Potter before him, and they’ll ride out the loss of the likes of Leandro Trossard without fuss, I’m sure.
This week’s newsletter isn’t about Brighton but their weekend conquest, and a temporary absentee upon whom I’ve developed a pretty unhealthy fixation.
Darwin’s Evolution
It’s not uncharitable to suggest that Liverpool’s 2022/23 season is falling below the expectations of the supporters, the players, and perhaps manager Jürgen Klopp himself. Klopp is a serial winner, Liverpool a club with victory in its very cells.
They’ve won apart and they’ve won together but this season’s drift is the result of a failure to move forward at the pace necessary to stay ahead of the competition. There’s value in consistency and trust in personnel, but cracks in the exceptional Reds team that won the Premier League in 2019/20 have only widened since.
That’s not to say Klopp and Liverpool haven’t acted on some of their needs. Darwin Núñez and latterly Cody Gakpo have moved to Anfield to some fanfare in recent months. The defence and midfield might be in increasingly obvious need of attention but there’s been big investment in the attacking department.
Gakpo has barely got his feet under the table on Merseyside but Núñez has been around long enough to have experienced all the joys of being an expensive and misfiring striker in England’s top flight.
The 23-year-old Uruguayan signed from Benfica in the summer and is plainly a talented lad. He’s seldom far from his team’s positive play and his importance in that regard has been acknowledged.
But this is the Premier League in the social media age. Before Liverpool’s defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion (which he missed; make your own joke), Núñez had – according to the league’s data – missed 15 big chances. Wastefulness has made him a figure of fun, a caricature, and when punditry puzzling meets public piss-taking it can be difficult to avoid.
I like Núñez. I like him more than I thought I would. I like the way he plays, his determination and his attitude on the field. I like his speed and power. I like his knack for the spectacular. I like the general cut of his jib.
Nothing makes me like an elite footballer like a flaw. Oh man, do I love a flaw. In his first Premier League game at Anfield, against Crystal Palace, Núñez almost got as far as an hour before falling for Joachim Andersen’s defender’s devilry and dropping the nut on him.
There’s no such thing as a victimless crime but Andersen got what he wanted so I make no apology for enjoying the hell out of Núñez’s first red card in England. There will be more.
Infectiously spicy nature aside, I also think Núñez will fulfil his promise at Liverpool and become indispensable, if indeed he isn’t already. It’s not as if he hasn’t made a dent so far.
He scored in the Community Shield before scoring one and making one at Fulham in his Premier League debut. He scored in defeat to Arsenal but his goal against West Ham United and goals against Southampton were the difference between two points and six.
With the Reds approaching the fixture that marks the middle of their league campaign it’s an opportune moment to look at the evidence, in the words of saucy old Loyd Grossman, to see if I can back up my gut feeling that Núñez’s production will eventually catch up with the rather obvious fact that’s he’s really bloody good.
Data, it’s over to you.
Núñez has scored five league goals for Liverpool: three with his right foot, one with his left foot and one with his head. He’s hit the target with around half of his shots and five of the others have hit the woodwork. He’s got a couple of league assists and made seven big chances.
These aren’t the numbers of a slouch but five goals is hardly prolific for a player of Núñez’s ability, so what’s going on?
Núñez is scoring roughly at the rate of half a goal every 90 minutes in the Premier League. In his last season at Benfica that number was 1.18 goals. Look a little closer, though, and we see that his non-penalty expected goals per 90 (npxG/90) in the league this season is 0.76 compared to 0.69 last season.
Núñez is finding great scoring positions and getting chances. He’s proven before that he can put them away at a higher rate.
He’s shooting more than last season and although the percentage that have hit the target (SOT) so far is slightly down, it still nets out at a higher SOT/90. His goals per shot figure has dropped by two thirds, however, and his goals per shot on target has dropped to 0.23 from 0.58. Well done, goalkeepers of the Premier League.
Núñez’s game is necessarily changing around his club’s requirements. Passes over long and medium distances surprisingly account for his overall improvement in passing accuracy. He’s crossing the ball less often. He’s winning the ball in the air more – a lot more. And, for the record, he’s also blocked eight shots and made eight clearances in 871 Premier League minutes.
In 2021/22, Núñez was the top goalscorer in Portugal’s Primeira Liga – including for non-penalty goals – and it wasn’t even close. He ranked first in the league for both goals and goal involvements per 90 minutes, and they weren’t close either. He outperformed his xG for both goals and non-penalty goals by more than any other player. Guess what? Not close.
He’s well down on all of those in 2022/23 but I think what’s fascinating about Núñez is the question mark over last season in the context of the two either side of it. In 2020/21, his first season at Benfica, Núñez’s key attacking numbers were generally closer to this season’s than last.
All of this is to say that I don’t really know what’s to come for Darwin Núñez in the second half of the season. We’ve seen him deliver more from less but only for one season, the season that convinced Liverpool to part with their third-highest transfer fee ever to secure his services.
Either his 2021/22 season was a freak or he is. It’s impossible to know for sure which side of the argument will gain credence in the history of the future and predicting the outcome isn’t really about numbers anyway. It’s about the eye test, about character, about feeling.
I don’t know if Núñez’s statistics will bounce back and, honestly, I have no idea whether we’ll be looking back on a banner season in Portugal as an outlier in the career of a capable, hard-working footballer who couldn’t rediscover his scoring touch.
But I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be just fine. I hope so.
“Everton’s Board of Directors have been instructed not to attend today’s Premier League fixture against Southampton because of a “real and credible threat to their safety and security". Chairman Bill Kenwright, CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale, Chief Finance & Strategy Officer Grant Ingles and Non-Executive Director Graeme Sharp have reluctantly accepted the outcome of the safety assessment carried out by security advisors.”
It’s all kicking off at Goodison Park.
Salty beef extracts
Unai Emery interview: Aston Villa coach on his football obsession, why details matter and what next for his side (Sky Sports)
Harry Kane is too good to be measured by medals and trophies (The Guardian)
How fantasy football, and Fantasy Premier League, went from niche hobby to mainstream boom(ESPN)
Goal of the Week (yes it’s an Aston Villa one – shush)
That’s your lot. Thanks for reading. Please subscribe if you enjoyed it and haven’t done so yet.
Don’t be shy when it comes to sharing the newsletter. If I can get a decent handful of subscribers I can sack off Twitter and isn’t that the dream for all of us?
Have a week.