Liverpool FC Forum

[kazza]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jun/12/darwin-nunez-liverpool-medical-transfer-benfica

Looks like we got our man and he will complete his medical today. The owner of his previous club has been posting the deal is done and they will get their part of the sale so it has been properly agreed. I cannot see a 22 year old not improving under Klopp and if history is anything to go by, he will become a world class player. Against deep block teams he can be that focal point that will score headers and muscle his way through packed defenses, especially with all the crosses we put in the box. I think we were very clever with the wage structure and this is us evolving into another top team. I hope we don’t miss Mane’s defensive contributions (he intercepts a lot of balls) but Diaz, Nunez and Salah will be quite the forward line. The fact we had contact with Mbappe means we may still be looking at a right sided player for Salah. Also I read it is a six year deal and not a 5 year deal as previously reported.

Welcome to the best club in the world!

[redshade]

This lad will flourish under Klopp, his got great attributes that take our attack on another level.

Let's hope Haaland flops and Nunez takes us to glory.

[kazza]

This lad will flourish under Klopp, his got great attributes that take our attack on another level.

Let's hope Haaland flops and Nunez takes us to glory.

I hope you are right. I think the Haaland v Nunez thing will be a theme over the next few years. Haaland seems to have a bit of an ego, hopefully that situation explodes with Pep.

[kazza]

Darwin Núñez: a rampaging bull who should be an ideal fit for Liverpool

Striker plays with everything he has, spiritually and physically, and has so far taken a rapid ascent in his considerable stride
Andy Brassell
Mon 13 Jun 2022 10.10 BST
If you think the pressure of a transfer to one of the world’s elite clubs – at an eventual cost potentially reaching the €100m mark – might weigh on Darwin Núñez, then you have a lot to learn about Liverpool’s new centre-forward. The Uruguayan was always ready for this. His whole – and relatively brief, to date – career in Europe has been an unequivocal line of pressure and expectation, from when the newly-flush Spanish second-tier side Almería signed him for a fee north of €5.5m shortly after his 20th birthday, in 2019.

That initial leap over from his first professional club Peñarol was, by Núñez’s own admission, prompted by his ambition to provide for his family, having always said he would buy his mother a substantial house after getting his first big deal. “When I was transferred to Almería that’s what I did – I bought six hectares of land and gave it to her,” he said in an interview with Uefa Champions League Weekly in February.

Ever since his rate of progress – and ability to overcome setbacks – has meant none of his stop-offs have really offered the possibility of being much more than transient. His arrival at Anfield, taking him to the very top of the game even before he turns 23 at the end of the month, gives him the opportunity to begin to sink his teeth fully into a career in the elite and begin to satisfy an apparently insatiable appetite.

Núñez is likely to take it in his stride. On arrival at Almería he embraced being the spearhead of the well-funded, high-profile project of Turki al-Sheikh, scoring 16 times despite working under four head coaches in a chaotic environment. When Benfica swept him away just over a year after his arrival they did so ahead of a cluster of competition, with clubs from the Premier League and France forcing the Portuguese club to spend a national record €24m to secure him. Whether the (apparently easily attainable) bonuses in the Liverpool deal are triggered or not, Núñez will be the second-most lucrative sale in Benfica history, ahead of Rúben Dias’s transfer to Manchester City and behind only João Félix’s 2019 sale to Atlético Madrid for €120m. By now, he is more than used to the weight.

“With me Darwin only would have gone for €150m,” the club’s former president Luís Filipe Vieira claimed in an interview with Portuguese daily A Bola this week, referring to the release clause in the striker’s contract. Given the bombastic tone of his rhetoric in the piece it might have seemed like an idle boast, but we had been here before. Jorge Jesus said he expected Núñez’s eventual sale price to eclipse that of João Félix after his first goals for the club in 2020, a Europa League hat-trick against Lech Poznan, and his former Almería coach José Gomes concurred this year.


If coaches tend to err towards caution with young players, Núñez’s talent has been so impossible to hide that he has rarely been the subject of such treatment. His playing style, rampaging around central defenders like a bull and dragging them into wide channels, has always suggested broad shoulders, as has his resistance to difficulties. His first Benfica season was no cakewalk, featuring only six Liga goals, a debilitating knee complaint and considerable fan frustration. Núñez powered through to contribute 10 assists, before last season’s breakthrough: 26 in 24 Liga starts in a still underachieving Benfica side, as well as six in six Champions League starts, encompassing a one-man demolition of Barcelona and an equaliser at Anfield.

In those tough times Jesus rarely spared him public criticism, despite being “just a kid”, and their relationship often verged on testy. “Every day he shows me new things, [and] points out to me things I lack in certain situations,” Núñez acknowledged last year. Gomes publicly said: “He has to prepare himself better in the moment before he receives the ball, especially when he’s in the central corridor [of the pitch].” The potential is so high that a coach’s need to perfect is irresistible.

If there’s a note of caution, it’s that Núñez’s high-impact style could end up taking its toll on him in the Premier League. Like another former idol of the Kop, Fernando Torres, Núñez plays with everything he has, spiritually and physically. Sometimes, you wonder if it’s too much. “I can’t imagine what state I’ll be in within five or six years if I continue to play here,” Torres said in 2010, and Núñez is not the kind of character to deal in half-measures. Jürgen Klopp will need to manage him carefully.

Yet if his career so far is anything to go by, Núñez is unlikely to ponder that too much. He is not one to stand on ceremony which, as his fellow Liga alumnus Luis Díaz has shown, is the best way to fit in with Klopp’s exhilarating team

[7_Kewell]

Let's hope he's an improvement on the last player we had who was called Nunez 

[Boocity]

Welcome to the club Darwin, really looking forward to next season. Lets see what we do with a no 9 putting away Trents crosses.

[devaney]

Darwin Nunez you have joined LFC at one of the best times in the clubs history. Enjoy making even more history. WELCOME and good luck.

[redshade]

If we want to win EPl we have to be relentless like we were in 19/20, that is what were up against. Hope Nunez makes a difference and I'm confident he will.

[Reg]

22 years old and playing alongside Booby, Mo, Jota and Diaz! Wow! Let's hope he adjusts to the EPL as well as Diaz did.   

[damjan193]

Welcome to the club Darwin! One of the best young players in Europe right now for sure. Don't know how good he is in his link-up play or his pressing, but he's quick and agile but also has a physical presence and is tall, something we've been missing in our front line. Looks like a good finisher too. He looks like a combination of Torres and Cavani, both in physical features and playing style, hope he'll prove that he has their quality as well.

The price is a bit steep for a player from the Portuguese league but that's modern transfers I guess. We rarely make mistakes these days when it comes to spending big, so I trust the people in charge.

[kazza]

Watched him twice now and I think he will not be a Diaz that slots right in but more a Naby that will take time to bed in. Looks a little nervous to me and when reading up on him the consensus seems to have been his weakness was his mental strength. He is still so young and no doubt will be a great player for us but my gut tells me it will take him more time to settle.

It does seem like the ream is trying to bring him in so that will help.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I’m working long hours at the moment and struggling to see any of the games. Slightly concerning to read Kazza’s post above ^^ but it’s early days.

[Reg]

A pal of mine who wentg to the Palace game in Singapore said: 'Nunez will either be the next Torres or the next Andy Carroll'.

[kazza]

I think preseason will actually start in Austria so plenty of time to find a groove. He had blisters, new team and all that. It just seems he is trying too hard to me and one chance in particular he tried to head it back but no one was there, it seemed he was too afraid to have a go.

The move and price tag is what suddenly put Nunez on the world radar, in contrast to Haaland who has been hyped for a while. To go from relative obscurity to being a 100million Euro player must be daunting for a 22 year old, especially into a world class attack that was already purring and frankly play a different way. He is in the right place as Klopp makes world class players and once the Kop starts singing his name he will settle. In four years he still would not have hit his prime.

[Reg]

He'll be ok, just needs to stay cool and enjoy himself. Booby, Ali, Fabinho and Thiago will all look after him.