The successful seasons of Darwin Núñez and Gabriel Jesús are shaping the race for the title | first division

FSoccer is a simple game, but it is also complicated, and sometimes the biggest complication is determining how complicated it is. As the data reveals the complexities of their inner workings and informs increasingly complex schemes of pressure and counterpressure, at the same time the most direct and obvious observations take on a strange depth: “What they need is someone to put the ball in the box.” field”. net.”

At the highest level, the impact of data on processes has been enormous and has led to disconcerting shifts in perspective. Take, let's say, Brighton's 2-2 draw against Liverpool in October, when all four goals came (one from a penalty) from transitions after recovering the ball high up the field.

Even a couple of years ago, the basic assumption would have been that this was the result of carelessness on either side. On this occasion, it was clear that possession had not been lost, as the standard description would say, but had been recovered. They were goals that were not the result of errors but of transitions caused by the excellence of the team that had recovered the ball.

Pep Guardiola spends days analyzing his opponents, looking for the small vulnerabilities in their defensive setups, working out where he can create overloads or generate pockets of space for Manchester City's creators to operate. Everything is analyzed, everything is processed to maximize efficiency while capitalizing on the opponents' capabilities. inefficiencies. There is an extraordinary sophistication. And yet, the old truisms are still not false: sometimes it really helps to have someone who can score goals.

The question of what a centre-forward should be has manifested itself, in different ways, at Arsenal and Liverpool this season. For Arsenal, the question is whether a team can realistically challenge for the title without a top scorer. The answer, obviously, is yes: it has Erling Haaland Now, but Guardiola has regularly won titles without an orthodox striker and never seemed entirely convinced of the merits of Sergio Agüero.

The opposite is also true: Harry Kane has scored 23 goals in 19 Bundesliga games this season, but Bayern are second in the standings. It may be that an overreliance on a goal scorer makes a threat predictable and has a negative impact on other processes. But still, as Arsenal They lost three league games in December and had a higher xG than their opponents, it was impossible not to think how much more credible their title challenge would be with someone taking advantage of the opportunities they were creating.

Gabriel Jesús is a good striker. His movement is excellent and he is diligent in his defensive work. He makes a lot of what's good about Arsenal work; If he were replaced, it wouldn't be a simple case of introducing a more reliable goalscorer and hoping everything stays the same, just with more goals.

The fact is that Jesus is not a great finisher. He has never scored more than 14 goals in a league season and has reached double figures in three of his seven seasons in Europe. Even after scoring at Nottingham Forest on Tuesday, He ranks 505th out of 532 Premier League players for goals minus xG (excluding penalties), a rough measure of attacking efficiency. That may not matter if his main goal is to create space for others and they provide the goals, but Bukayo Saka, the club's top scorer in the league with seven, ranks 463rd in that metric. Set pieces aside, Arsenal are a team that needs a lot of opportunities to score goals.

But Liverpool center forward Darwin Núñez also thinks so. He has seven league goals this season but sits 24 places below Jesus on that goals minus xG list, ahead of only Nicolas Jackson, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Yehor Yarmolyuk, the 19-year-old Brentford midfielder whose budding race is not over yet. give up a goal

Partly thanks to his extraordinary ability to hit the post: four times. against Chelsea on Wednesday brought his tally for the season to 12. The feeling is that at some point his luck has to change and at least some of those efforts will end up being effective. He has the feel of a forward who could suddenly hit form and produce a 20-something 30-goal season. But the same thing was said about another persistent wood botherer, Timo Werner, and it never quite worked for him.

But it doesn't seem to matter: in the case of Núñez what that metric seems to highlight is the volume of opportunities he generates, even if he later fails many of them. There is something extraordinary in the seeming impregnability of his self-confidence, in the way failures seem to not matter to him: fail again, fail again, fail again, score… and repeat.

It's not just about the goals, which come almost as a bonus. Núñez is relentless, indefatigable, a constant whirlwind of energy and physicality, creating space. His unpredictability (he's just as likely to hit a shot into the top corner from 30 yards as he is to miss an open net from five) means defenders can never relax around him.

He has seven assists in the league this season, more than anyone except Mohammed Salah, Kieran Trippier and Ollie Watkins, and four more than Jesus. In that sense, his wastefulness may not matter; Núñez almost becomes the embodiment of high octane Jurgen Klopp Soccer ideal.

Except a disturbing thought arises. Imagine a situation in a crucial Europa League match, or against Manchester City at Anfield next month, or even at the Emirates on Sunday, assuming he is fit. It is a close match, with few possibilities in both directions. There are no goals in the end. Liverpool defend, recover the ball and break. Núñez plays one against one. Do you back him to score? It may be that he is so adept at wreaking havoc that he creates opportunities even against high-class opponents, but it could also just as easily be that history remembers a significant failure and determines that for lack of a striker a title was missed.

But then it may also be that because of all the other work he – or Jesus – does, he earned a title. How simple a soccer game is can be a complicated question.