Two years ago, three young strikers arrived in the Premier League with high expectations around them. Two of them have surpassed expectations, but the other’s English top-flight journey is likely to end this summer.
Erling Haaland is currently having one of the best bad seasons a player could possibly have, with 29 goals in 39 appearances for Manchester City, taking his total tally since joining the club to 119 goals in 137 appearances. Alexander Isak — who is now being linked with a move to Anfield — meanwhile, has scored 58 times in 100 appearances for Newcastle, and his most recent goal helped the Magpies to win their first major domestic trophy since the 1950s.
But while Darwin Nunez will almost certainly end this season as a Premier League champion, he is unlikely to still be a Liverpool player come August.
In the season prior to Nunez joining Liverpool, he had scored 34 times in 41 appearances for Benfica, but as most soccer fans know, players succeeding in leagues like Portugal’s Primeira Liga and the Netherlands’ Eredivisie do not always go on to succeed in England.
The Premier League is the best league in the world, and while Haaland and Isak have managed to adapt (there was little doubt about the former), Nunez simply hasn’t consistently shown that he has the quality to lead the line for Liverpool.
The Reds could have sold Nunez for a handsome fee amid interest from clubs in Saudi Arabia during the January transfer window but Arne Slot was unwilling to do so as the Reds were fighting for glory on four fronts at the time.
When Liverpool’s season resumes, the focus will be on just one competition after the Reds faced disappointments in the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Champions League, and one wonders whether the club might with hindsight regret not letting Nunez leave mid-season.
(Image: 2025 Chris Brunskill/Fantasista)
Liverpool always expected that there would be a strong market for Nunez during the summer window, and the club is still likely to be able to recoup a decent-sized fee that can then be put towards a replacement, maybe even Isak, although he would cost well in excess of $100 million.
There have been various reports that have suggested Nunez wants to leave this summer, and his comments during the international break, when he said he wanted to “forget” about his club plight for a few days, suggested he has had enough of Liverpool.
The open-goal blunder against Aston Villa and the penalty shoot-out miss against Paris Saint-Germain have erased the good-will that his heroics against Brentford earned him with supporters back in January, and when the campaign resumes, Nunez will surely be on a farewell tour.
