Nunez has endured a difficult start to his career at Liverpool but appears to have turned a corner in recent games, leading to the first of Benfica’s bonus payments being triggered.
Liverpool are due to make the first of their bonus payments to Benfica as part of the deal that brought Darwin Nunez to Anfield.
Nunez joined the Reds in what will eventually be a club record transfer move in the summer window from the Portuguese giants. He has struggled to impress since arriving on Merseyside however, with a red card against Crystal Palace stunting the start of his time at Liverpool.
But he finally appears to have turned a corner in recent games, with two goals in his last two matches. First, he scored the Reds’ equaliser in the defeat to Arsenal before he also bagged a goal in their thrashing of Rangers in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Nunez started up-front at Ibrox, a selection call from Jurgen Klopp that means the Reds now owe Benfica £4million. That is according to A Bola, who claim that only £65m of the total £85m fee was paid up-front.
The rest of the fee will come through a variety of bonuses, the first of which was activated on Wednesday. That bonus concerns appearances, with Nunez now having made 10 appearances for Liverpool.
Benfica are now owed a £4m as a result of that, which should go into their bank account shortly. The Reds will be due to pay another £8.5m when Nunez reaches 60 appearances, which could come at some point next season.
The rest of the fee will be made up by a variety of team and individual performances bonuses. Boss Klopp has been pleased with Nunez’s recent performances after a rocky start to his career at Anfield.
“Darwin now played a lot after not playing that much and you have all of these kind of things in your mind when you do the changes. They were able to see Darwin, for him this [scoring] means the world,” he said.
“You could see relief on Darwin’s face tonight. The relief was big and obviously all the efforts are paying off. I thought everybody who started tonight played really well. I cannot think of one player who didn’t have a good game.
