Darwin Núñez: Schrödinger’s Striker

The conundrum of players who are both brilliant and terrible

Article by Phil Tomlinson of The Tomlinson Times

Last summer it occurred to me that, while no player is a clone of someone similar, Darwin Núñez reminded me of Djibril Cissé, the similarly-sized, super-fast, very expensive striker-winger whose 19 goals in 2005/06 were not enough to keep him at the club.

Rafa Benítez eventually found the right solution in 2007 with Fernando Torres, while 2006’s Dirk Kuyt was not as prolific as hoped, but whose 71 goals were part of almost 300 appearances of grit and stamina and Feyenoordian fervour, whilst scoring between 11 and 15 goals in each of his first five seasons.

Núñez, like Cissé, is Schrödinger’s Striker.

Is he good, or isn’t he good?

Or rather, why is he sometimes amazing, sometimes abysmal?

You don’t have to have perfect players. All players have weaknesses. Liverpool have had elite players who can barely use their weaker foot.

But after two years, you have to start looking at consistency, rather than highlights reels (or vicious lowlights reels).

With Núñez deleting all Liverpool-related social media content, you feel something may be on the move.

It also occurred to me that there may be more transfer outgoings this summer than if Jürgen Klopp were staying. There doesn’t need to be a big clearcut, the emergence of so many outstanding young players, and the needs of a new manager make it a more normal time for some exits.

I sense that Liverpool will happy to let players go if they don’t want to be at the club, or if they want to use Klopp’s abdication as the King of the Kop to make their own break.

They won’t sell cheap, but it makes no sense to hold on to any wantaways, especially as selling earlier makes planning ahead easier, brings in money to reinvest earlier, and there’s no ongoing saga. A new manager ideally needs his squad sorted by preseason, to help smooth a transitional period.

Liverpool are not in any danger of breaching PSR limits, but if Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes want to buy very specific types of player for the very specific type of football Arne Slot plays (not too dissimilar to Klopp’s, but maybe with refreshed energy and more reliable talents, and possession in different areas/ways), then Núñez could be a good player to cash in on – if there are takers at a very healthy price.

If Liverpool could generate a surprising amount of transfer cash from sales of those senior players who aren’t quite clicking (or are melting), as well as a few of the kids and fringe players who don’t have a future at the club, then that would give Slot (via Edwards, Hughes and the scouts) the ideal chance to address the one or two weaker areas in the XI and squad, and go for the very specific kind of player a broad, deep and young squad might not quite cover.

The way it’s likely to work is that Slot will detail very specifically what he wants, and he’ll also be assessing the Liverpool squad already.

To me, Núñez seems ideal for Atlético Madrid, as I said last summer; a club that could afford him, and give him the breakaway space to run into, in a country and suits his culture. He feels like a Diego Simeone project in waiting.

There’s talk of Barcelona wanting Núñez too, and the less-physical Spanish league could see him make more use of his pace, as he’s not as strong as I was expecting to be, nor as brave, nor as good in the air on duels (albeit he can head the ball quite well).

I don’t think Edwards and Hughes, who didn’t buy him, will ignore Sunk Cost Fallacy, if they think paying his wages (and losing transfer value if he has another mixed season) is sending good money after bad.

He’s not a possession-football kind of striker, as his touch is too loose, his passing too erratic, and his frequent, infuriating offsides mean moves break down and give the ball away by means of a free-kick.

Equally, I’d be happy to see if Slot could teach him how to stay onside, hold the ball up, get stronger in retaining the ball; as Slot seems an expert in working on players’ weaknesses in creative ways. That’s the one big takeaway I’ve taken so far, beyond the good tactical stuff: the creative solutions.

But you can improve areas by so much: no amount of sprint training would have turned Sami Hyypia into Usain Bolt.

For me, a big issue is that Núñez is just far too emotional. I was at his first home game, where he headbutted someone.

He has had some horrible social media abuse in his time in England, from Reds and rival fans, but I noted last season that he’d paid it too much attention, and it gets inside his head. It’s human, but it’s not healthy.

All players should avoid social media, and just have their people deal with it. There are too many crazies out there, which is why I barely use social media anymore. (And when I have to, to promote some writing, I often end up regretting it; Núñez’s job is to play football.)

He’s the very dictionary definition of mercurial: “1 subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind”; like the thermometers that use mercury, he is hot and cold.

He’s amazing and terrible, often inside the same 10 seconds.

I love him, and he drives me insane.

And this is the issue: at his best he’s unplayable. He creates space with his pace and movement, and he can score and create.

He has a wide range of finishes (volleys, chips, blasts, curls, headers, slots), and uses either foot – but the weirdest thing is how frequently he chooses the wrong option.

In some ways, it suggests he’s close to being more successful, as does hitting the woodwork so often.

However, I have less concern about his missed chances (up to a point), as even a Big Chance is only scored one in three times by strikers, and some of the saves to deny him have been insane – especially when he’s absolutely walloped the ball towards goal from a cross and it just hits the keeper, in situations where all a striker can do is get something on it, and direct it towards goal with the pace already on the ball (when it’s hard to get direction).

But the mediocre pressing, the poor first touch, the running offside, the loss of composure as he goes in to kick someone, and a general “mania” when he plays is more of a concern.

He’s compared to compatriot Luis Suárez circa 2012, but Suárez was a misfiring (and mental) genius in his first 18 months. You worried about Suárez’s finishing, but not his overall play.

Suárez was simply on another level as a footballer, due to his insane first touch, creative brain, intense work-rate and an (at times) unhealthy desire to win at all costs.

In England, you often don’t get time for a second touch if your first isn’t perfect, as a James Tarkowski will gleefully clothesline you.

Yet with Schrödinger’s players you just never know. Maybe suddenly it clicks, but until then, you’re just not sure what you’re going to get.

Even Mo Salah is starting to be a Schrödinger’s Player, as he’s still so good at so many things, and far less good at a lot of the other things.

That’s what age does; it robs of various attributes, but you don’t just become a bad player overnight – it’s a gradual evolution, or devolution, rather. (Unless you’re Casemiro and your game collapses in a heap, much like your attempts to win the ball.) The problem then becomes accepting being rested and rotated, and some players seem to hate that so much they won’t accept it.

Salah now does his best work closer to goal, having gone from someone who beat his full-back 70% of the time to 30% of the time, and who cannot score from wider or further out anymore, and whose pace is down by a few crucial percent. Nearer the goal, he’s generally still great, albeit penalties boost his tally. His passing from deep has been sublime at times, but in wider areas, he can’t beat his man and he can’t score.

But Salah, like Núñez, needs other players to balance things out for him if he’s to succeed. And the more you need to balance players’ shortcomings, the trickier it can get.

For Salah in the first half of this season, it was Dominik Szoboszlai using his greater pace on the overlap. But then Szoboszlai also got injured, and tired after a phenomenal first five months; not unusual for a first season in English football, especially if playing lots of games without being rested, running huge KMs and making countless full-pelt sprints.

To me, Szoboszlai is not a Schrödinger’s Player; just one who hit the wall. He’s still got to prove consistency, but the first five months showed enough. Indeed, all players have to prove consistency within games, within seasons, and across seasons.

Salah isn’t as quick as Núñez. Núñez isn’t as good a footballer as Salah. Salah has passed his peak; Núñez could theoretically still improve. Salah is ice-cool; Núñez overheated.

But look at Salah from 2017-2023, or Virgil van Dijk from 2018 to 2024, or Alisson from 2018 to 2024 (albeit Caoimhín Kelleher did better in xG and team-result stats this season), or Sadio Mané from 2016-2022, and Trent Alexander-Arnold, and so on (the peak years of Fabinho, Andy Robertson, Roberto Firmino, et al), and you see nothing remotely Schrödingeresque about them (ditto the earlier example, Fernando Torres, 2007-2010).

They may have dips in form (related to injuries, too), but you were never wondering “are they good enough?”.

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