Benfica president Rui Costa has claimed that it was ‘impossible’ to turn down Liverpool’s bid for Darwin Nunez this summer.
Speaking to BTV via A Bola, Costa admitted that Liverpool’s move for the striker was too good to refuse.
We are talking about one of the highest transfers on the market. We are still coming out of a situation that has caught up in the football market [Covid]. Making a sale of €75 [£65m]+€25M [£21.6m] doesn’t have much discussion,” he said.
“Darwin’s sale is more than justified, nor were there any conditions to keep him, it was completely impossible, by the values that entered the club and what Darwin was winning.”
Liverpool still waiting for Nunez to explode
Hopefully, in time, Liverpool will be just as happy with the fee they paid for Nunez as Benfica currently are.
For the moment though, it looks as though the Uruguayan will be a working progress at Anfield. Despite some reports that Liverpool aren’t convinced by their new signing, there have been plenty of encouraging signs.
Given the fee The Reds paid, the pressure was always going to be on Darwin. After some initial struggles in pre-season, he answered that pressure well with a four-goal salvo against RB Leipzig.
He carried that form into the early games of the season, scoring off the bench against Manchester City and Fulham.
After that promising run, Nunez shot himself in the foot with a senseless red card against Crystal Palace. Since then, he has been playing catch up as Liverpool fight to get their season off the ground.
Obviously, it’s still very, very early days for the 23-year-old at his new club. Looking back on his time at Benfica, he ticked along in his first season before exploding to life in his second. Perhaps we should expect a similar trajectory on Merseyside.
There’s still bags of time left in this season for Darwin to make a mockery of that prediction. He has only played five games after all.
A few goals over the next run of games, and things will start to look much brighter for Nunez.
