Top star closer than ever to Liverpool exit after making final decision over Anfield future

Fresh reports from Spain claim that Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez has made a firm decision over his future ahead of the summer transfer window, as his agent continues to tout the player across Europe.

The main off-field focus at Anfield over the past few months has been on the futures of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk, whose contracts are all due to run out this summer.

At this stage, there is confidence that Salah and Van Dijk will still sign new deals on Merseyside, while Alexander-Arnold has been consistently linked with a transfer to Spanish giants Real Madrid.

However, another player who is being continually linked with a Liverpool exit is Nunez, after the Uruguay international forward fell out of favour under Arne Slot.

Indeed, the 25-year-old frontman has made just seven Premier League starts under the Dutchman and has only four goals to his name, with six in 36 games in all competitions this season.

It appears that his cameo appearance in the draw at Aston Villa, in which he missed a golden chance for the Reds to win the game, was the final straw for Slot – who openly criticised Nunez after the game.

And it now appears that a parting of the ways is inevitable when it comes to the £85million signing, with reports coming out of Spain revealing that Nunez is now ‘closer’ to a move to Atletico Madrid than before after he ‘fully decided that he will leave Liverpool in the summer’.

The Atletico claims are somewhat surprising, given that it appeared that route had been shut off, while the former Benfica man has also ‘received offers from Saudi Arabia and Italy, although his priority would be to land in Spain’.

A switch to Barcelona has also been mooted but that was immediately shot down by the Catalan giants, who continue to battle with their finances in Catalonia.

Either way, it appears that Nunez will be moving on from Merseyside – it just remains to be seen what sort of asking price Liverpool will demand and which concrete offers actually come in.

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Owen leaning towards Nunez sale

Meanwhile, former Liverpool striker Michael Owen thinks it’s a case of “what you see is what you get now” from Nunez, with the Reds unlikely to get any significant improvement from the attacker going forward.

Indeed, Owen said: “In Darwin Nunez’s first season, I was 50/50 over whether he was going to be an incredible player or someone who is always going to be a frustrating player who could do more.

“There’s a very good player, of course, but not somebody that’s going to now be ranked among the world’s elite strikers. It’s frustrating because you see parts of his game that you just think, wow, that’s just incredible.

“But then you see parts of his game that you think, wow, that should have been taught to you when he was 10 or 12. That’s the strange thing about his game.

“He does things that you can’t teach people and then he doesn’t do things that should be very teachable. My assessment now is that what you see is what you get.

“I’ve been open-minded for a good while thinking this kid could be developing into something incredible. Now I don’t think that will be the case.

“He is a very good player, a big asset for Liverpool, but I just think what you see is what you get now.”

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