In signing Darwin Nunez, Liverpool have created the next great player rivalry for the Premier League and beyond

This isn’t how it was meant to go. When those that covered football were looking towards the future last summer there was one prospect that people kept coming back to. There was this theory around a rivalry in Spain that could try to get close to what we saw between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ad/> For all sorts of reason the proposed dynamic between Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland didn’t happen. Perhaps in 2024 or 2025 things may look different for all parties but for now that scenario is dead in the water. TransfersRice to reject eight-year West Ham extension amid Man Utd interest — Paper Round11/05/2022 AT 22:45 Instead, quite unexpectedly, Liverpool might have created something else, a different kind of rivalry, but one that will be equally compelling to watch.

The purchase of Uruguay forward Darwin Nunez from Benfica has come out of the blue. Allow us to explain. Liverpool weren’t expected to be big players in the market, rather, most fans and journalists predicted more incremental transfers that gradually upgraded the quality and depth of the squad.

But with Sadio Mane likely to leave to Bayern Munich, and Mohamed Salah still without a new contract, Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp have decided to act. Much like Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool clearly feel that a massive outlay on Nunez is worth it because of the quality he will bring to the team both in the short-term and the long-term. Nunez is far closer to Alisson in where he is in his career.