Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Brentford 0 Liverpool 2 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
“And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps…”
AND then there he is.
The Nunez thing has vexed everybody. And – to be clear – it will continue to do so.
But at the moment when you are begging, when you need something, anything, football miracles, then there he is. There he is.
There will almost certainly now not be a run of goals, but will there be another big goal or two? Will he make another telling contribution? Will he open the scoring against Real Madrid or something similar? Will he score late one more time? It’s hard to write him off.
Not because he is Divock. He is almost the polar opposite of Divock. Divock would almost ghost through games before dispassionately settling the affair. Nunez is instead constantly present, driving you mad or making you sad. Nunez makes you think of what might have been, what might be in another dimension. Divock made no false promises.
Divock loved his contribution but Nunez craves his. Divock enjoyed affection, but Nunez wants nothing more than to be a Liverpool hero. Craving isn’t always healthy whereas enjoying and loving tends to be.
Today, I craved. I am sure you did too. The aftermath of Nottingham Forest left this day with craving at the top of the agenda. We could not see that lead diminish further, we simply had to find our way to the points.
As the game wore on, wanting gave way to needing and then needing gave way to craving. Craving being this mental desperation, because the gnawing just won’t stop. I understand why so many supporters have found this week hard. Because the gnawing just won’t stop. Craving folds and tugs and ultimately kills. Craving is the heat going out of you and you chasing it down, fruitlessly. Craving is the abyss and there was the abyss all of a sudden.
And then there he is.
“I love you still,
Against my will.”
And this is why he makes so much sense in this moment, that moment. His craving may not be like ours, because the only league title we’ve got to celebrate we had to do it on a beach because of social distancing. His craving may have something to do with personal drive and goals, but it does also always appear to have something to do with loving his teammates. I love that about him. At our best, I love that about us. And in those moments, this is why I can never give up on him.
Other things happened. Liverpool were the better side, the deserving side, while the heat left the body. Dominik Szoboszlai was all business. He played ever so well until his race was run. Cody Gakpo should have opened the scoring. Luis Diaz felt just out of what was required, but only just.
Brentford asked questions. Question after question. They showed they could play through the press or go direct or counter attack. They could hurt Liverpool in all the ways. Yoane Wissa managed to look both shattered and effervescent at once. They never carried no threat.
Part of why the craving set in was precisely that – they could keep the game over the abyss. Time and again, it could have gone one goal in either direction.
But Liverpool were the better side. They deserved to find their way, but looked like they had never seen a map. They deserved the ball to bounce for them, but it wouldn’t. They didn’t deserve two on the bounce where nothing broke loose their way.
I began to will a Sepp Van Den Berg own goal solely because it began to look like that was what it would take. At the other end, Ibou Konate was called upon repeatedly and always stood up to be counted, while watching at the other end chances and chances for chances be spurned.
Federico Chiesa felt like a last throw from Arne Slot, a desire to harness something, anything, whatever serendipity was around.
And then there he is. Instead, him.
Chiesa’s delight in the goals became all of ours. All Nunez wants is to be our hero, more than anything to repay his name being chanted and perpetuate the chants. He craves that and the opportunities will be there between now and the end of the campaign.
He won’t take them all. He won’t take the majority of them. But let the ones he takes be the same salve this was. Let them be the same sheer release and relief. The vexation will probably return but this gift, this lightness today and for a couple of weeks to come, is just balm.
The gift of the big man. May it sneak up again when you least expect it.
Because then there he is.
“And type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don’t listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio…”
