Why are Liverpool signing Darwin Núñez?

A big name signing who feels slightly different to the usual model. What's happening?

The thing about Twitter is that it’s very easy to talk a lot of shit on there.

Let’s take something I said about two weeks ago:

“I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. But I'd be very surprised if Liverpool ditched the model they've used for the entire Klopp era where the side doesn't really have a pure number nine. If Klopp wanted that, he'd have got one in years ago.”

Well, I am very surprised. I didn’t expect this. Liverpool have signed Darwin Núñez for about £65 million upfront, potentially rising to £86m (as of current exchange rates). He has played out wide at times, but he’s clearly a different profile to the forwards Liverpool have used under Jürgen Klopp. Let’s break down this move and try to figure out what’s going on.

I called him “Darwin” in this article rather than “Núñez” as that’s the name Spanish and Portuguese-language media seem to go with, but I’m not absolutely fixed on that choice.

Who is Darwin Núñez as a player?