How much cash Liverpool is placing in Darwin Nunez has stood out.
The Uruguay striker lands at Anfield for an expense that will very likely shroud the £75 million they paid Southampton for Virgil van Dijk in January 2018.
Benfica uncovered on Monday that they had consented to move Nunez to Liverpool for £64 million or more £21.4 million in additional items. On Tuesday, Liverpool provided their own affirmation.
In any case, the Merseyside club will no doubt be saying goodbye to a vital player simultaneously, with Sadio Mane connected with a transition to Bayern Munich.
Anyway, might Nunez at any point coordinate or maybe outperform what the Senegal global has achieved during his time at Liverpool?
We inspect the 22-year-old to see what Liverpool could get for their cash.
Is Nunez a Mane substitute?
The way that Nunez is being marked only to score objectives stands apart regardless of anything else.
He didn't start off very well at Benfica subsequent to joining for €24 million from Almeria in September 2020, scoring only six objectives in 29 Primeira Liga games (19 beginnings) in 2020-21, yet he more than compensated for it this season.
Nunez had an expected objectives (xG) rating of 9.98 in his most memorable season, suggesting he wasn't scoring as numerous as he ought to have. In 2021-22, he nearly compensated for it by scoring 26 objectives in 28 association games (24 beginnings) with a 18.4 xG.
Mane, who is a competitor for the Ballon d'Or in 2022, scored 16 objectives in 34 Premier League games (32 beginnings), a xG figure that is strikingly similar to Nunez's (18.3). While the open doors that turned out well for them were comparable in esteem all through the season, the Uruguayan was altogether more clinical.
Obviously, there is a quality differential between England's top level and Portugal's first class, yet the two groups matched up well in the Champions League.
Nunez had six objectives in ten games (six beginnings) with a xG of 3.1, while Mane had five objectives in thirteen games (11 beginnings) with a xG of 4.5. Once more the 22-year-old was a more steady finisher of chances than the Senegalese global.
It is not yet clear whether Nunez can change this over completely to English football, yet there are other intriguing correlations between the two players that propose they aren't so unique as some might accept.
Nunez and Mane both showed an elevated degree of development in their separate associations last season. The previous had four helps from a sum of 4.8 anticipated helps (xA), while Mane just had two from 4.4 xA, inferring that he was let somewhere near his partners' unfortunate completing now and again.
The two players have shown they can run with the ball, attempting 86 spills each during the 2021-22 season, but Mane's prosperity level of 54.7 percent was considerably higher than Nunez's 45.4 percent.
The primary contrast between the two is that Mane, a previous Southampton aggressor, has generally played off the left flank for Liverpool, while Nunez is basically a middle forward.
That ought not be an issue, as the Reds just tended to that part of the pitch a couple of months prior by shopping in a natural market.
Isn't it the Premier League? It's finished, amigo.
Many individuals were shocked when Liverpool was obliged to sign Luis Diaz from Porto toward the finish of the January move window, since it is an association they are know about.
Not that they hadn't wanted to buy Diaz in any case, yet reports expressed they were wanting to do as such toward the finish of the time, just for a startling proposal from Tottenham to push the arrangement forward.
It was a welcome need, as Diaz set it all up and assisted Liverpool with verging on accomplishing the unbelievable by winning a fourfold.
With the Colombian moving to the left half of the assault, Mane had to play in a new focal situation for the equilibrium of the time, which he did honorably.
Nunez will be a more normal fit in that middle job than Diaz, and both will be searching for a smooth exchange from the Primeira Liga to the Premier League.
He's now demonstrated that he can cut it against English resistance in two appearances against Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-finals this season.
Virgil van Dijk as of late recorded Nunez as one of his hardest ever rivals in a meeting with Rio Ferdinand, in spite of Jurgen Klopp's side winning 3-1 in the main leg in Lisbon. Nunez scored the Benfica objective and played alright that Virgil van Dijk as of late recorded him as one of his hardest ever rivals in a meeting with Rio Ferdinand.
At the point when Van Dijk was inaccessible, he might have dazzled much more in the return leg at Anfield. Nunez regularly pulled out to one side, extending Liverpool's guard, and he might have had a full go-around in the event that it hadn't been for their viable offside snare.
Nunez scored multiple times in the Liverpool objective, yet two of them were precluded by the associate ref as Benfica drew 3-3 on total.
In the end 10 minutes, however, he showed his power of character by driving a fabulous prevent from Alisson and practically hauling his group once more into a game they had recently been well out of.