Liverpool's Summer Rebuild: Could Darwin Núñez Return?

The rebuild at Anfield is not so much a gentle reset as a full-scale teardown. Mohamed Salah has gone. Andy Robertson has gone. Ibrahima Konaté is seemingly heading for Real Madrid.

Into that churn walks Andoni Iraola, tasked with cleaning up the mess left by Arne Slot and stitching together a new Liverpool from the scraps of an old era. The squad has obvious gaps, especially in attack. The answer to one of those problems may come from a name the Kop knows all too well.

Darwin Núñez. Again.

A Free Swing at a Costly Gamble

Núñez arrived in 2022 under Jürgen Klopp with a price tag that screamed franchise forward. He never quite became that. He became something stranger instead: chaos, energy, relentless movement, and a finishing record that drove fans to both laughter and despair.

Now, according to TEAMtalk, the Uruguayan has been offered to a small group of clubs as a free agent. Liverpool are among them. Not as buyers this time, but as opportunists. No fee. No financial risk on the scale of 2022. Just wages and the hope that a second act might look very different from the first.

Núñez’s Liverpool career is remembered as underwhelming on the whole, even though it ended with a Premier League title. The numbers never quite matched the promise. Under Klopp, he hit 11 league goals in 2023/24 while somehow missing 27 big chances. The season before, nine league goals came alongside 20 big chances missed. He was an xG machine who turned clear openings into collective groans.

Yet coaches love players who get there in the first place. Núñez always got there.

Saudi Detour, Same Old Story

His move to the Saudi Pro League with Al-Hilal at the start of the 2025/26 season was billed as a fresh start and a lucrative one. It didn’t rewrite the narrative.

He scored nine times in 24 appearances before foreign player limits cut him from the squad. His last outing for the Saudi giants came in February, when he scored twice in a 2-1 AFC Champions League Elite win over Al-Wahda. Then it was over. His contract was mutually terminated and the experiment ended as abruptly as it had begun.

The finishing? Still erratic. Six league goals from a hefty 11.48 expected goals underline that the old issues followed him to the Gulf. The movement, the chances, the chaos — all there. The composure, still missing.

Now, at 26, Núñez stands at another crossroads, assessing his options for the summer. Benfica, where he truly exploded onto the European scene, are expected to challenge for his signature. There are whispers in Spain that he has already given the green light to a Liverpool return, arriving on a free transfer.

If that proves accurate, Anfield will be welcoming back a player who never quite settled, but never stopped threatening to.

Iraola’s Dilemma – and Opportunity

For Iraola, the equation is simple on one level and complicated on another. Liverpool are short on attacking depth heading into his first season. They need bodies. They need variety. They need someone who can stretch defences and open space, even if the net doesn’t bulge every time.

Núñez offers exactly that.

He is, by any measure, an xG magnet. His movement drags centre-backs into places they don’t want to go. He attacks the near post, darts in behind, and turns hopeful balls into half-chances. Even in a rotational role, he guarantees volume: shots, runs, chaos in the box.

The question is whether Iraola believes he can harness that chaos better than Klopp did. Whether his system, with its intensity and verticality, can turn Núñez from a symbol of wastefulness into a weapon of relentlessness.

For Liverpool, bringing him back on a free is a very different proposition to building an attack around a record signing. It’s a low-cost gamble on a player who knows the club, the league, and the expectations.

The summer at Anfield has already ripped up the old script. Salah gone, Robertson gone, Konaté on his way. If Núñez walks back through the door, the story of Liverpool’s next era might just be written by a face everyone thought they’d already turned the page on.