Darwin Nunez: From Liverpool's Chaos to Saudi Arabia's Spare Part
Darwin Nunez once felt like the perfect frontman for Jurgen Klopp’s “heavy metal football” – raw, frantic, gloriously unpredictable. Liverpool paid £64 million to drag him out of Benfica in 2022, a statement signing for a team that thrived on chaos and intensity.
He never quite became the star they imagined.
Forty goals in 143 appearances is respectable, but Anfield never fully wrapped its arms around him. Nunez became a cult figure instead: loved for his effort, doubted for his composure, a symbol of the Klopp era’s wildest edges rather than its ruthless peak.
By the summer of 2025, the story had shifted. The Uruguayan traded Merseyside for the money and glare of Saudi Arabia, joining Cristiano Ronaldo and the cluster of European names heading to the Middle East. The move looked lucrative. It has not looked happy.
At Al-Hilal, foreign-player limits have squeezed him out of the domestic squad. From marquee arrival to spare part, Nunez has been told he can find a new club. The door, at least in theory, is open.
Could that door lead back to Liverpool?
John Barnes doesn’t see it – not under the current regime.
Speaking to GOAL in association with viagogo’s “World Cuts” campaign, the Liverpool legend cut straight through the nostalgia. Any talk of a Nunez return, he argued, has to start with one man: Andoni Iraola.
“Not if Iraola doesn't want to play in that way,” Barnes said. If the new Liverpool manager wants structure, control and clarity rather than the Klopp-era chaos, Nunez simply doesn’t fit. “If he says, ‘I don't want to play in a chaotic fashion’, then Darwin Nunez is not meant to come back.”
That’s the crux. This is no longer Klopp’s Liverpool, and Barnes is adamant the club cannot cling to the old soundtrack.
“If Jurgen Klopp was there, he may say we want him back,” Barnes admitted. But Klopp was still in charge when Nunez left. The relationship had already run its course.
The bigger point, in Barnes’ eyes, is that Liverpool must stop measuring every decision against the Klopp years. Style, recruitment, even dressing-room power – all of it has to be reset around the new man in charge.
“What we have to do, the new manager, however he wants to play, quick, slow, chaotic, non-chaotic, slow in possession, dynamic, heavy metal, we have to do what the manager wants and back him. We can't live on the Jurgen Klopp legacy and say we have to go back to that.”
That stance even puts him at odds with Mohamed Salah’s public insistence on “non-negotiables” in the way Liverpool should play.
“So Mo was wrong in terms of what he said about non-negotiables, we have to play in this particular way,” Barnes argued. The message is blunt: the players don’t dictate the philosophy; the manager does. “We have to give the manager his chance and say, however he wants to play, he's going to pick the players and we're going to back him.”
Barnes points to Arsenal as the blueprint for patience. Mikel Arteta finished eighth, then eighth again, then fifth. The club stayed with him. The payoff is now obvious.
He also fires a warning shot at Liverpool’s fanbase. For him, it’s not owners or executives who ultimately end managerial reigns. It’s the crowd.
“Owners and chief executives and hierarchy don't sack managers, fans do. And the fans, unfortunately, lost faith in Arne Slot. So the decision had to be taken.”
That experience hangs over Iraola already. The Spaniard has not yet taken charge of a competitive game, but Barnes can see the trap forming.
“Now if Iraola loses two or three matches in the first month, are we then going to sack him?” he asked, before drawing a sharp comparison with Manchester United’s post-Ferguson chaos. David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho – all judged against a ghost. All discarded when they couldn’t be Sir Alex.
“If you're going to hold on to Jurgen Klopp’s legacy, we're not going to get a manager who is going to come to Liverpool and be successful. Forget about that,” Barnes said. “Whichever manager comes in, we back him in whichever way he wants to play - slow, fast, quick, heavy metal, chaos, whatever. He makes the decisions, not the legacy of the past.”
The debate over Nunez is only one strand of a far bigger rebuild. Liverpool have already lost three pillars of the Klopp era on free transfers: Mohamed Salah, Ibrahima Konate and Andy Robertson. On paper, that screams “spending spree”. Barnes isn’t convinced.
He reaches back to Arne Slot’s short spell to make his point. When the Dutchman arrived, Liverpool signed Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo. Neither became central figures in a title-winning season.
“So is the solution to sign players?” Barnes asked. “We signed four players, £400 million, but that didn't work. Is the solution to the problem signing players? We have enough players. We have good enough players. Now, if we need a centre-back, we get a centre-back.”
For Barnes, the obsession with the transfer market risks stunting what Liverpool already have, particularly in the academy. One example sits front and centre in his mind.
“If we sign a player and we talk about [Yan] Diomande coming, what's going to happen to [Rio] Ngumoha? We're going to set him back.”
His stance is clear: trust the squad, use the market selectively, and stop chasing quick fixes to emotional problems.
“So for me, we've got enough players now. If we can get better players and the manager wants more, fine. But for me, I think the players we have are good enough. We have to trust them. We have to trust the manager and get on with it.”
Somewhere in the middle of all this, Darwin Nunez is trying to relaunch a career that once seemed destined to explode at Anfield. Now 26 and turning out at the 2026 World Cup with a new braided look, he finds himself linked again with England, again with Liverpool, again with the question of what he really is: chaos weapon or misfit?
Liverpool, under Iraola, must decide what they want to be before they decide whether he belongs in it.
