Liverpool announce Darwin Nunez as Reds seal club-record £85m transfer
Liverpool have confirmed the signing of Darwin Nunez from Benfica for a club-record £85m.
The transfer will see Liverpool set a new club-record deal, surpassing the £75m paid to Southampton for Virgil van Dijk in January 2018. Other big-money purchases from Klopp at Anfield include £66.8m couriered to Rome for Alisson and most recently £50m paid to Porto for Luis Diaz.
“I’m really happy and delighted to be here at Liverpool. It’s a massive club,” Nunez told Liverpoolfc.com.
𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐖𝐈𝐍 2️⃣7️⃣#DarwinDay pic.twitter.com/q1QEOle0V4
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) June 14, 2022
“I’d like to thank my partner and my parents and my son, who is a real source of pride for me. They’ve been really important to me in the stages in my career. I’m really proud of them, and for the work we do, me and my partner, as a team and I’m grateful to her that I’m here.
“It’s a pleasure to be here in Liverpool and I’m very happy to be a part of this great club.
“I’ve played against Liverpool and I’ve seen them in lots of games in the Champions League, and it’s my style of play. There are some great players here and I think it’s going to suit my style of play here.
“As I say, I’ve watched quite a lot and it’s a very big club and I hope I can give everything that I’ve got in order to help the team.”
He continued: “When I arrived at the training ground, I was really surprised to see the set-up and the structure and all the trophies here.
“You can then imagine yourself winning more trophies and then later on when you come here again and see the trophies on display, you can say, ‘Look, I was a part of that, I was there at that time, winning trophies.’
“That’s one of the reasons why I came here to Liverpool – to win trophies and titles. I want to win a lot of trophies at Liverpool.”
Earlier this week Benfica confirmed Liverpool will pay them an initial €75m (£64m), with add-ons up to €25m for their 22-year-old attacker.
Benfica’s statement read: “In the early morning hours of this Monday (0:44 am), Sport Lisboa e Benfica – Futebol, SAD informed the Securities Market Commission (CMVM) that it had reached an agreement with Liverpool FC for the sale of all rights to the player Darwin Nuñez, for the amount of 75 million euros.
“To the CMVM, Benfica’s SAD also informed that ‘the agreement provides for the payment of a variable remuneration, so the global amount of the sale could reach the amount of 100 million euros’.
“‘It is further informed that the aforementioned agreement is dependent on the signing of the player’s sports employment contract with Liverpool FC’, it is further explained in the official document.”
Nunez rose to meteoric prominence for Benfica in 2021/22, with only Robert Lewandowski (84.31) boasting a better minutes-per-goal ratio than him (84.39) across Europe’s top six leagues among players who featured at least 19 times.
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That kind of prolific penalty-box devastation has naturally made Europe’s leading lights sit up and take notice, with Nunez now set to move to last season’s Champions League runners-up, who certainly know a thing or two about world-class Uruguayan strikers having boasted Luis Suarez on their books before his time at Barcelona.
The numbers are certainly impressive — 34 goals in 41 games across all competitions in 2021/22 for Benfica, including six in the Champions League — but Klopp will perhaps being looking beyond the data, having been on the receiving end of Nunez’s wrath in Europe.
The 22-year-old left his calling card both in Lisbon and Merseyside as Benfica and Liverpool tussled in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The German coach will be hoping he can replicate that form in England from next season onwards.
