The bolts may be fraying, panels flying off, ball bearings skittering along in its wake, but Liverpool’s Premier League season continues to barrel along. A 4-1 victory at the Gtech Community Stadium came soundtracked by pinging tendons and twanging knees as first Curtis Jones then Diogo Jota left the field, both in a state of some distress, to be followed by Darwin Núñez at half-time.
Three more names to add to that ever-lengthening sick list; and in Núñez, in particular, a player Jürgen Klopp and his team really won’t want to lose right now.
Núñez has trodden a fascinating path across his 18 months at Anfield, from new hope to online snark target, to his status now as Lord of Misrule, an increasingly potent force of happy attacking chaos. There may be shanks and bobbles and scuffs along the way, but the fact remains the last time Liverpool lost with Núñez in the starting XI was Real Madrid in March last year.
He remains a key reason why Liverpool are top scorers in the league, and why even here, with players crumpling at every turn like disposable cowboys in a western shootout, this team always looks as if it can score, and do so in many different ways.
It was Núñez who broke the game open here after a slightly fuzzy opening 20 minutes, cast for the key moment of the game as a one-man direct football instrument. There was a kind of retro-beauty to both of Liverpool’s first and third goals, moves ripped wholesale from the wing commander Charles Reep script, the POMO playbook. Send it long, hit space, second ball. Catch them quick, break. And most important of all, hit Darwin.
And so it came to pass with 35 minutes gone. Núñez hadn’t started the game well. For a while he seemed always to be haring away from the direction of play, a man making all the right runs, just not necessarily in the right order. Midway through the first half he switched gears and began hurling himself against the door frame of this game, seeing if it might start to give and splinter.
There was some potent chaos after a deep cross where Núñez had two, maybe three chances to barge the ball into his orbit. Then came the opening goal, and a point from which Liverpool didn’t look back.
It arrived from a long set piece punt from Mark Flekken returned straight down the centre of the pitch by Virgil van Dijk, whose hoofed clearance dropped perfectly into the run of Jota. He headed on to Núñez, already raging away at a full sprint with a clear path to goal. There was time to think, plan, plot, fret about human mortality. Núñez didn’t blink, instead producing the perfect finish, clipping the ball over Flekken in a startlingly high, fine, gentle arc.
This was a sixth goal in his last 11 games, to go with four assists. And it seems fair to say Núñez has carried Liverpool’s attack without a stumble or a stutter or a backward glance in the absence of Mohamed Salah.
It is a rare quality to improve like this, to settle and assert your will after such a difficult start; all those days Núñez seemed to spend rumbling about the pitch like an errant labrador, eager but always somehow in the wrong place, chewing your slippers, knocking over the tea tray, drinking out of the toilet.
It would have been easy to shrink, to stop putting yourself out there, to rein in that bullocking energy. But then Núñez’s super strength is that he never ever stops coming, won’t take no for an answer, will be there every night at 4am chewing your toes and suggesting a game of frisbee catch in the park.
It was Jota’s departure that led to an early return for Salah. He made Liverpool’s second for Alexis Mac Allister, then scored the third himself from another piece of direct play. This time Caoimhín Kelleher punted the ball long, Cody Gakpo flicked it on and Salah went skittering in to take the loose ball, then poke it back across into the far corner.
It was a lovely finish, and also evidence of Salah’s enduring speed and agility, as witnessed by Nathan Collins’s slightly hangdog attempts to match his movements.
There were other plus points for Liverpool. Conor Bradley was back, looking bright and fearless as ever. He got to hear the away support singing his name, as they always do, but with a little more tender feeling given recent events. Sometimes football does feel like a gentle place. Best of all, for all the missing parts, Salah’s return raises the prospect of a Darwin reunion for the final third of the season, fitness permitting. Staple the doors back on. Keep the engine running. It should, at the very least, be quite a lot of fun to watch.
