Liverpool REPLACE Darwin Nunez with £70m star | OneFootball

Replacing a player like Darwin Nunez was never going to be straightforward due to the nature of his time with us - it was an expensive move for a promising player, who sadly failed to deliver.

The Uruguayan was initially a bit of a risk since he was South American, and working out whether players from that corner of the world can adjust to European football is always quite a tricky task.

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But Nunez had been playing in the Champions League for Benfica, while scoring goals for fun in the Portuguese league. You never really know if a play like that has what it takes to succeed in England.

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The approaches for Hugo Ekitike left many Liverpool fans with a similar pit in their stomach - he was going to cost upto £79m and the experience he had at the top level was in the Europa League as well as bits and pieces in Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga. How did the club not make the same mistake twice?

Ekitike proves Liverpool learnt their lesson

Well, the simple answer is that Nunez was a Jurgen Klopp signing, a transfer agreed when the recruitment team was in transition, missing an authoritative sporting director. The ex-manager liked the look of Nunez on the eye-test and made the call for Liverpool to snap him up for £85m.

This time, however, Ekitike was picked from Michael Edwards' laptop, utilising the data-based approach which succeeded on countless occasions during the early part of Klopp's Liverpool era. He arrived with only an initial £70m transfer fee with £9m add-ons.

He has been considered by many as a Roberto Firmino type striker, willing to drop deep and link up with his teammates, as well as pressing high, running in behind the defence and occasionally driving down the left-hand side if there is a vacant channel in the attack that isn't being utilised effectively.

We're not talking about your stereotypical No. 9 here, he's a far more complete player than that.

In the three-appearances he's made for Liverpool so far, he's dispelled any suggestion that he might be another flop like Nunez unfortunately was. Ekitike has well and truly hit the ground running.

On his Anfield debut last Monday, he made an assist for the Reds' opening goal against Athletic Bilbao, which gave everyone food for thought that he could occasionally play at left-wing this season.

And on Sunday in the Community Shield against Crystal Palace, he was on top form up front, scoring his first goal for the club on the edge of the box with a driven finish, alongside linking up all the time with Florian Wirtz in the No. 10 role. Some of the moves in transition were genuinely breathtaking.

So, of course, there's still a long way to go before we can make any real bold statements, the Premier League season doesn't kick off until Friday for Liverpool. But what we've seen so far has been really impressive and it doesn't feel like we're in for another scenario like we had with Nunez.

The Uruguayan might have started his time at Liverpool in similar fashion, scoring in the Community Shield, but the underlying numbers suggest the pair are completely different players to one another.