The Red Army s former general revealed: Why Nunes was signed instead of Isaac

With the £85 million "parallel" striker about to leave Anfield, Liverpool's former research director revealing why the club decided to advance the signing of Darwin Nunes instead of Alexander Isak in 2022.

That year, Nunes joined the Reds from Benfica with a club record transfer fee. Liverpool spent £64 million on him in initial expenses, plus various additional terms, with a total price of up to £85 million.

And just the same summer, Newcastle also broke their own transfer record, spending £63 million to bring in Isaac from Real Sociedad.

Now it seems that the fate of these two strikers in the Premier League is completely different. Isaac's performance at Newcastle is booming, while Nunes is likely to leave the team this summer.

Nunes played 143 games for Liverpool and scored 40 goals, including 25 goals in 95 Premier League games. Although Isaac has played fewer games due to injury problems (109 games), he has scored 62 goals for the Magpies, including 54 in 86 Premier League games.

In an interview with the Financial Times, former Liverpool club research director Ian Graham hinted that the growing voice of then-head coach Jurgen Klopp in transfer affairs was the key to the Reds' choice of Nunes over Isaac.

Graham was responsible for using data analysis at the club to assist the team's transfer decisions between 2012 and 2023. He is now the CEO of a sports consulting company called Ludonautics.

He explained that in 2017, the recruitment team had successfully convinced Klopp, abandoning his original goal, Yulian Brandt, and signing Salah. That decision was later proved to be a "sentence of the world".

However, in the following years, as Klopp led the team to great success in the Premier League and Champions League, the balance of power within the club also changed. In 2022, Klopp is obviously the one who strongly advocates signing Nunes.

"Jurgen created great success for the club, so it is understandable that decision-making power is tilted to his side," Graham said.

"In 2022, he signed Darwin Nunes instead of Alexander Isak. Those two players, if you go to see the top young centers in Europe at the time, they would be the top two - or at least the top three, but Haaland was going to Manchester City at the time, which was beyond our budget."

"Jurgen prefers Nunes. If I say, 'It's so bad that Klopp made his own choice', then I can't help but Too ungrateful. Because in the past, Jurgen was persuaded by my colleagues and I to accept a different choice. "

" And, the situation was still the case that we signed a good player - as far as Nunes was concerned, he was one of the best young strikers in Europe at that time." Graham added that he believed that the practice of the head coach finally making the transfer was unique to English football and that phenomenon was beginning to die. Nowadays, clubs trust more professional recruiting teams when making decisions.

Klopp was in office and publicly supported Nunez. He stepped down as Liverpool head coach in the summer of 2024.

Last season, under Klopp's successor Arne Slott, Nunez made 47 appearances, but only started 8 times in the Premier League and scored only 7 goals in various competitions.

The Uruguayan striker has reportedly attracted the interest of Naples, Atletico Madrid and Saudi giant Riyadh Crescent this summer. But for the moment, Naples is seen as the most likely to sign his front-runner at a discount.

According to Post Sports, if financial resources allow, Liverpool hopes to sign another striker this summer.

Isaac will be their "dream goal", but he may need a higher transfer fee than the club spends on Wilz (the initial 100 million, up to £116 million).