In one respect, Darwin Nunez replaced Sadio Mane, in another Roberto Firmino. When he left the Anfield pitch, probably for the last time in a Liverpool shirt, he was replaced by Lewis Koumas. He was given a standing ovation by many, along with a final blast of the chant of “Nunez”, as he came off in Monday’s pre-season friendly against Athletic Bilbao’s second team.
It was a fond farewell, but also an anticlimactic one for the man who, when he joined, arrived with the expectation that comes with being Liverpool’s record signing. He had the deceptive debut, when he scored and Manchester City’s striking newcomer Erling Haaland did not, in the Community Shield; since then the Uruguayan delivered another 39 goals in competitive games, the Norwegian 124. The comparison was long since abandoned.
When each came to England in 2022, Nunez as Firmino’s long-term successor and as Mane was joining Bayern Munich, it did not escape attention that he cost more than Haaland – an initial £64m, potentially £85m – albeit with a significantly lower salary. So a transfer to Al-Hilal for a guaranteed £46.2m, and perhaps more, represents both a significant loss and yet a fine bit of business by Liverpool.
Napoli’s lower offer entailed deferring the first payments until 2026; Nunez was AC Milan’s top striking target but there was little prospect of them coming up with the best part of £50m. Selling Nunez to Al-Hilal seems a case of damage limitation. Those with a basic grasp of maths may note, too, that the fees being recouped for Nunez and Luis Diaz come to just over £110m, or about the amount Liverpool offered Newcastle for Alexander Isak.
The applause at Anfield on Monday, however, was not for Liverpool’s prowess at negotiating. Nunez goes having created memories, many of them unforgettable. He offered constant entertainment, much of it stemming from his innate unpredictability. There are compilation videos of many a forward’s goals online; in Nunez’s case, there are series of clips of his misses, some of them extraordinary. His goals could be brilliant, too, though one of the more pertinent comments came from Michael Owen after a chip at Brentford in February 2024: “A one-in 10, two-in-10 finish at best,” he said, wondering why Nunez hadn’t taken a simpler approach.
But then, some would say, he wouldn’t be Darwin Nunez. He was a magnificently ridiculous footballer. Before he was consigned to the bench by Arne Slot, every game seemed to revolve around Nunez. He was agent of chaos, force of nature, approaching the role of centre-forward in the manner of a runaway horse. Every now and again, a contrarian would argue that, actually, it was all planned, that Nunez knew what he was doing. Then he would do something quintessentially anarchic to show that was essentially uncontrollable and that no one – opponents, teammates, managers or Nunez himself – knew what was coming next.
The definitive Nunez performance may have come in January 2024’s 4-1 win against Chelsea. Nunez ran Chelsea ragged but didn’t score. He did, however, contrive to hit the woodwork four times. Which conformed to a theme: Nunez would average more shots per 90 minutes than anyone else in the division. He was so far clear in his first two seasons at Liverpool that he was essentially off the charts. It illustrated how hard he was to contain.
Which Jurgen Klopp had noted when he troubled Virgil van Dijk in the 2022 Champions League tie against Benfica. Klopp always liked players with a super-strength, and Nunez’s pace, height and relentlessness were three. But Klopp also had huge influence in transfers then; Liverpool’s former director of research Ian Graham said the German preferred Nunez over Isak. He bought the Uruguayan as Michael Edwards was leaving: the sense is that Fenway Sports Group’s data and statistics model did not point to Nunez as Firmino’s successor.
The red card on his Anfield debut, for headbutting Crystal Palace’s Joachim Andersen, constituted a false start. Nunez’s first two seasons brought 15 and 18 goals respectively – respectable but not remarkable – but with a question of where to use him and if he was reliable. He spent a spell in 2022-23 on the left wing, Klopp not really trusting him with the tactical demands of the role in the middle.
In public, Klopp excelled at looking indulgent and understanding rather than frustrated with Nunez, even though his wayward finishing was often an issue. By the end, it felt as if even he gave up on Nunez, starting him in just one of his last seven games.
He only began eight league matches under Slot, who preferred Diogo Jota and the converted winger Diaz as strikers. The Dutchman’s football was less chaotic than Klopp’s; he did not operate on the principle that if Nunez wreaked enough havoc, the goals would come, even if they were for someone else. He showed a willingness to rebuke Nunez in press conferences; the striker wanted to leave in January. He never learnt much English. It became clearer a Klopp project did not suit Slot’s style of football.
Nunez scored a mere seven goals in 47 appearances in last season (he left with seven in 57, going back further and the goal before then was a clearance by Sheffield United keeper Ivo Grbic that rebounded in off his thigh). He departs the Premier League with the idiosyncratic stat that no one who hit the woodwork so often – 14 times – did so in anything like as few minutes. But, in their own way, the Liverpool crowd may miss him and opposing defenders may not: there were days when Nunez seemed unstoppable, except by his own inability to hit the target. The Saudi Pro-League won’t know what is about to hit them.
