Julian Ward once tried to stop Jurgen Klopp from making one of his most divisive Liverpool signings

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Julian Ward is back in the sporting director hot-seat at Liverpool after four years taking on other responsibilities at Anfield.Ward stepped into the big boots left by Michael Edwards upon his first exit from the club in 2022, and though he was not in the job for long, he has impressed the Liverpool owners enough since coming back with Edwards in 2024 to be given a second chance.The one summer Ward was previously the main man for led to some interesting signings, with the headline addition being the £64m capture of Darwin Nunez from Benfica. Nunez rarely lived up to his price-tag at Liverpool, and although he ultimately helped them win the Premier League in 2025, he was not the key player he really should have been. 🚨 Alexander Isak has suffered a minor injury and is returning to Liverpool early.

Give us your reaction 👇 Credit: Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP via Getty Images While some Reds fans would potentially see Ward’s decision to sign Nunez – and the outlay spent on him – as a blot against his name as a sporting director, it was revealed in 2024 that it was actually Jurgen Klopp, not Ward, who pushed hard to get the Uruguayan through the door, with the recruitment team actually preferring then RB Leipzig man Christopher Nkunku.Klopp pushed for Nunez signingWhen Liverpool signed Nunez, it did not have the look of being a ‘classic Edwards’ type signing in the same way that Luis Diaz, who had joined six months earlier, for example, did.He had performed brilliantly against Liverpool in the Champions League for Benfica that season, and it emerged that Klopp had been particularly impressed by the then 22-year-old, while players such as Virgil van Dijk also urged the club to get the chequebook out and sign him.According to a report from The Times two years later, though, the recruitment team, led by Ward, had their doubts about Nunez.READ MORE: Latest Alexander Isak injury concern could mean Liverpool see a full Premier League debut vs Man CityNkunku was said to be their preferred choice, with the Frenchman having just had the season of his life with Leipzig, scoring 35 goals and laying on 16 assists. However, Klopp pushed for Nunez, and with Ward not holding the same sway as his predecessor, Edwards, and the former Liverpool manager growing in influence, Klopp won out.Though Nunez did have his moments, the signing ultimately went down as something of a failure.

Now back at RB Leipzig on loan as Ward takes up his position again, it is hard to say that the Nunez alternative would have been a roaring success either.Liverpool should have signed Isak in 2022Another option it has previously been reported that the Liverpool scouting team were looking at in 2022 was Alexander Isak, who ended up at Newcastle for a similar fee to the one paid out for Nunez.Isak went on to be easily the best option on the market that summer, and the Reds had to pay twice the price to finally get him to Anfield four years later.Ward has seemingly been quick to absolve himself of any blame for the Nunez signing, even though some of his other additions – such as Fabio Carvalho, Calvin Ramsay and the loan addition of Arthur Melo – were not exactly big successes, but if there is a failure here it was the decision not to pursue Isak.We perhaps will never know whether – or how hard – Ward pushed to get Liverpool’s now No. In the end, Klopp should potentially have listened to Ward, but with Andoni Iraola now working completely in tandem with him, the new sporting director will have nobody else to blame if he makes a string of similarly poor calls from here.