Liverpool‘s former director of research, Ian Graham, has explained that the Reds opted to sign Darwin Nunez over Alexander Isak after Jurgen Klopp made his preference for the Uruguayan known.

“Jurgen created a lot of success for the club, so it’s understandable why it moved in that direction,” Graham told the Financial Times.

“I’m happy to talk about my colleagues persuading Jurgen [in 2017] that Mo Salah was the player to buy instead of Julian Brandt.

“In 2022, he signed Darwin Nunez instead of Alexander Isak. Both players, if you look at top young centre-forwards in Europe, they would be number one and two — or two and three but [Erling] Haaland was going to [Manchester] City and out of our price range.

“Jurgen preferred Nunez. It would be very churlish of me to say: ‘It’s terrible that Jurgen had his choice’, when in the past Jurgen had been persuaded by me and my colleagues of a different choice.

“And it was still the case that we signed good players — in Nunez’s case, one of the best young strikers in Europe.”