“He will ultimately be a striker who didn’t do the business for Liverpool (except for when he did) and who will be a subjective taste. I loved him and am fine with those who didn’t.”
I’M IN A WhatsApp group with Kris Walsh. We were chatting apropos of nothing the other day and post Paris came up. How early the season started and how nobody was really ready. Milburn mentioned being in Glastonbury and being panicked and I remembered nearly having a panic attack at the farm twice, once on the Thursday trying to see Paranoid London and once on the Saturday trying to get into the Pyramid I think to see Haim.
Anyway, Kris said:
“I still maintain I didn’t enjoy football again properly until Nuñez at Newcastle.”
The funny interpretation of Darwin Nuñez’s Liverpool career is when we wanted him, he didn’t produce. When we needed him, he didn’t produce. But when we really, really, really fucking needed the prick, when you were about claw your own eyes out, when you couldn’t fucking take it anymore, he produced the goods. When all that remained was the bleak ground the other side of need, 10,000 miles away from want, then, there, that moment was Darwin Nuñez.
Newcastle. Snarling and crowing and fucking growling. We’d been so fucking sad and we were so fucking back. When he makes it 1-2 it genuinely could be the most “fuck off” I’ve been in my whole life. The most I’d ever ground my jaw.
We’d been so fucking sad. We were so fucking back.
Part of why we needed to be back is that it hadn’t worked. He hadn’t worked. He hadn’t produced. In a way this was harsh. Newcastle away in 2023 the first time that calendar year had seen him be unplayable. He’d made so much sense, just as he had at Tottenham, at Aston Villa. But football can’t be about constantly pulling it back from the brink unexpectedly. It has to mostly be about just doing the decent thing. Playing 7.5/10. Scoring the goal you should score at a decent hour so everyone can relax.
That bit beyond needing. When Jürgen’s Reds should have freewheeled their way to the title he should have scored the key goal against Nottingham Forest; one of the greatest goals in Liverpool’s run-in history. But then he should also have scored the key goal against Manchester United in April. Maybe it came too early, was too sane, was too generic. Too much time left.
In the season just gone I maintain he scored the goals that created a 4 point swing; if he doesn’t bag his brace at Brentford then Villa don’t get a point at Arsenal. Arsenal certainly don’t get booed off at Arsenal. He also opens the scoring against Aston Villa when we kick off at 8pm and Manchester City have been beaten by Brighton in the half five.
In both these instances don’t let anyone tell you games moving for television isn’t a good thing.
He scores the equaliser against Southampton and then wins the penalty when I want everyone who plays for Liverpool up against the wall at Anfield against Southampton. Liverpool champions.
He will ultimately be a striker who didn’t do the business for Liverpool (except for when he did) and who will be a subjective taste. I loved him and am fine with those who didn’t. He speaks to the part of me which wants to wear a bandana in the sunshine and hang off the edge of a cliff. Which in fact wants to hang around Kris and John’s neck and as the sunset comes to meet the evening on the hill, tell them I’ll always love them, I always did, I always will.
He conjures whiskey in my mouth and blood pumping around my body. He isn’t the same as Divock Origi. Origi’s moments were always “fucking yes” whereas Nuñez’s are “fucking fuck off”.
It’s time to go. It hasn’t worked. But in a way I wouldn’t change a thing.
We’d been so fucking sad. We really, really, really needed not to be anymore.
