Whether by minutes played and goal involvements, Luis Diaz was clear as Liverpool’s second most important forward last season behind superstar Mohamed Salah as Arne Slot’s Reds cantered to the 2024-25 Premier League title.
Now, Luis Diaz is a Bayern Munich player after Liverpool agreed a €75M deal to sell the hard working 28-year-old Colombian winger to the German giants in the midst of a summer that has seen a lot of changes to Slot’s squad—and with more expected.
“He always had a smile on his face
no matter what in the year that I’ve worked with him,” Slot said when asked about Diaz’ recent departure following Wednesday’s 3-1 pre-season victory over the J.League’s Yokohama F. Marinos.
“I played him a lot so then maybe it’s a little bit more normal to have a smile on your face, but even when I didn’t play him he always came out for every training session and gave it everything with a smile. Apart from that, I’m going to miss his song a lot.
“And of course he contributed to us winning the league. But this is also who we are as a club, we are making big signings and we have done that over the past few years. But we also need to recoup funds to get these transfers over the line.”
With Diaz out and Darwin Nuñez and Federico Chiesa expected to follow, Liverpool could end up with just three established forwards on their depth chart heading into the 2025-26 season in Salah, Cody Gakpo, and new signing Hugo Ekitike.
There’s promising 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha in the mix, too, but at his age and stage in development the club will need to protect the young talent. There will, it seems clear, be signings, including potentially some very big ones.
Liverpool are currently hard at work trying to secure Newcastle superstar Alexander Isak, which would likely require spending at least £120M, and potentially as much as £150M, rumoured to be Newcastle’s valuation of the Swedish striker.
Following Diaz’ departure, that seems the clear priority in attack. If the other departures come to pass as well, Isak won’t be the last attacking signing—though further transfers would likely seek the Reds focus more on value and potential.
“It has been a summer where we’ve spent a lot,” Slot added. “But I think that if people look at all of the money we’ve already brought in, that’s also—like last year when we almost only sold players—a good thing for this club as well.”
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