LONDON — Switch off the alarms, flip the dials again from “panic” mode: Liverpool‘s title cost is again on monitor. After all, they’d the Premier League‘s finest get-out-of-jail-free card: ship on Darwin Núñez.
With the fourth official nonetheless holding up the board exhibiting there can be 4 minutes of extra time in a busy sport at Brentford, maybe it was becoming that Liverpool’s most chaotic footballer was the one one capable of hold his head. A sport that appeared destined to complete goalless instantly, by some means, ended up as a 2-0 win for Liverpool.
Overlooked by Arne Slot for a spot within the beginning XI with the No. 9 spot vacated by the injured Diogo Jota, Núñez had watched from the substitutes’ bench as his teammates confirmed unimaginable ranges of profligacy in entrance of objective. By the tip of the match, Liverpool had taken 37 pictures at objective — their most in a sport in virtually 9 years, and probably the most by any away staff since Opta beginning gathering stats 21 years in the past — however it was the final two from the Uruguay worldwide that proved decisive.
Núñez can be the primary to confess he is had a poor season, restricted to only seven Premier League begins. These two objectives have been his first within the league since Nov. 9, and took his tally for the season to only 4. It’s led to hypothesis that he might even be allowed to go away on this switch window. Slot is perhaps considering once more now.
But the latter levels of video games are when Núñez comes alive. Eight of his 24 Premier League objectives have been scored after the clock ticks previous the seventy fifth minute. While Núñez wasn’t signed to develop into Liverpool’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a “tremendous sub” capable of come on and switch one level into three has at all times proved important for title-winning groups. It’s a task Núñez seems completely suited to performing. Indeed, since he arrived in England in 2022-23, Núñez has been immediately concerned in additional objectives as an alternative than another participant (11 — seven objectives, 4 assists).
“He scores objectives,” Slot stated of Núñez. “He works very laborious for the staff. He assists, however he is in competitors with plenty of good gamers. So that is why he is not each single sport on the pitch.
“But I’m very pleased with him, not solely as a result of he scored immediately two objectives, that after all helps. But I’m very pleased with the opposite performances he put in for us as properly.”
Since the flip of the yr, Liverpool have maybe lacked the ruthless edge that noticed them stack wins through the first half of the season. It was the case once more through the first 45 minutes in west London the place Liverpool did the whole lot however put the ball behind Brentford’s web, racking up 19 makes an attempt at objective and an xG of 1.54.
In the absence of Jota, the front-three of Cody Gakpo, Luis Díaz and Mohamed Salah menaced the hosts’ backline as they invented contemporary methods to virtually rating a objective, every of them extra ingenious than the final. Salah created 5 possibilities alone, certainly one of them a superbly weighted go throughout objective to current Gakpo with a one-vs.-one that the Netherlands ahead inexplicably missed.
Liverpool have emerged into the New Year as a unique, barely extra panicked beast to the one which rounded off 2024 with a 5-0 demolition of West Ham United. That win on the London Stadium stretched their lead on the prime to eight factors and left fellow challengers Arsenal firmly within the rear-view mirror. In the 20 days between that and the sport at Brentford, the one staff Liverpool had managed to beat have been League Two relegation candidates Accrington Stanley within the FA Cup.
Virgil van Dijk dismissed the thought of a “disaster” following Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest and Slot should have been getting ready himself to face comparable questions because the full-time whistle approached.
“Nothing modified with us between now and the beginning of the season or the primary half of the season,” Slot insisted after the sport. “What you do see is that it is at this second of time, a bit more durable for us to transform our possibilities into objectives.
“That’s not solely as much as us, that is additionally as a result of groups throw themselves in entrance of each ball each time we get an opportunity. So lots of the different groups attempt to forestall us from scoring. Always. All of them are in a low block.”
Whether by mistake of design, Slot’s staff often constructed assaults that left simply two Liverpool defenders again to cowl the potential counters of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. It was an invite Brentford tried to just accept at each alternative, with Mbeumo repeatedly marauding into the house vacated by Liverpool left-back Kostas Tsimikas.
Bees boss Thomas Frank continues to defy the chances, discovering contemporary features to push on his staff, who sit eleventh after this loss. They had possibilities of their very own, too, with 11 pictures and Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker compelled into seven saves. The residence staff might have stored the three factors themselves earlier than Núñez’s late present.
Watching Mbeumo is somewhat like watching Salah. The fast touches of the ball with the skin of the left foot as they create their favoured taking pictures angle on the nook of the field are remarkably clone-like.
But it seemed like a sport that had featured 48 pictures — multiple each different minute — was going to complete goalless. But Núñez had different concepts.
With the time ticking past the 90-minute mark, a kindly break for Trent Alexander-Arnold noticed the right-back fizz a ball throughout objective and Nunez diverted past Mark Flekken‘s determined dive. And two minutes later it was 2-0 as Núñez labored some house within the field earlier than rifling an effort into the roof of the online.
Núñez was mobbed in in entrance of the delirious away followers, properly conscious they might have simply borne witness to an important second within the title race.
Just a little greater than two hours later, and Arsenal had thrown away a two-goal result in draw 2-2 at residence to Aston Villa. What threatened to be a irritating and damaging day for Liverpool ended with their lead prolonged to 6 factors, with a sport in hand.
