Liverpool sold striker Darwin Nunez to Saudi side Al-Hilal, both clubs confirmed on Saturday, in a move that could allow the Premier League champions to make a fresh bid for Newcastle’s Alexander Isak.<\/p>\n
Nunez joined the Reds for an initial 75 million euros ($87 million, \u00a365 million) from Benfica three years ago but has failed to live up to that price tag.<\/p>\n
The Uruguayan scored 40 goals in 143 appearances but slipped down the pecking order at Anfield under both Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot.<\/p>\n
According to reports in the British media, Al-Hilal will pay an initial 53 million euros for the 26-year-old.<\/p>\n
“Al-Hilal Club Company is pleased to announce the signing of Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez from Liverpool FC on a three-year contract,” Al-Hilal said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Nunez was likely to play even less this season after Liverpool signed Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz as part of a 300 million euro spending spree that also includes full-backs Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong.<\/p>\n
However, the club could still break the British transfer record by signing Isak.<\/p>\n
Liverpool reportedly had a first bid of \u00a3110 million rejected, with Newcastle demanding a fee of up to \u00a3150 million for the Swedish striker.<\/p>\n
The sale of Nunez would take Liverpool’s income for transfer sales this window to nearly 200 million euros after the departures of Luis Diaz, Jarell Quansah, Caoimhin Kelleher, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Tyler Morton.<\/p>\n
Nunez is the latest big name to join Al-Hilal, who shocked Manchester City to reach the quarter-finals of the recent Club World Cup.<\/p>\n
Coached by former Inter Milan boss Simone Inzaghi, the Saudi club’s squad includes Portuguese internationals Ruben Neves and Joao Cancelo, Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly and former Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic.<\/p>\n
kca\/jc<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool sold striker Darwin Nunez to Saudi side Al-Hilal, both clubs confirmed on Saturday, in a move that could allow the Premier League champions to make a fresh bid for Newcastle’s Alexander Isak. Nunez joined the Reds for an initial 75 million euros ($87 million, \u00a365 million) from Benfica three years ago but has failed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[1421,424,289,290,521,425],"class_list":["post-6052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-alhilal","tag-eng","tag-fbl","tag-ksa","tag-liverpool","tag-pr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}