Liverpool’s top need in the summer transfer window is on the wing, with last summer’s failures by sporting director Richard Hughes to properly replace Luis Diaz following his sale having now been compounded by the departure of legend Mohamed Salah this summer.
Liverpool’s top target in the summer transfer window is Yan Diomande, with RB Leipzig’s Ivorian 19-year-old rising star on the wing the player everyone on the outside at least believes is a near certainty to join if the Reds can negotiate his
sale with a Leipzig side seeking at least £100M for him.
From a Liverpool point of view, then, all eyes were on Diomande when he lined up for Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday night when Les Éléphants took on Ecuador. He didn’t disappoint, putting in a Man of the Match performance in a 1-0 opening match victory.
“When we were in France during the preparations journalists told me he was about to sign with PSG,” manager Emerse Fae said afterwards. “Here, they tell me he’s about to sign with Liverpool. For now, he will focus on the World Cup—afterwards he can think about the rest of his career.”
It’s a bit of an odd transfer story at the moment, as widespread reports treat Liverpool interest and Diomande’s likely eventual signing as something of a foregone conclusion but without any confirmation via brief or leak that’s in fact the case or outlining where negotiations currently stand.
As such, it might be a little premature to get the player’s name on a Liverpool shirt. It also might not be an especially big surprise to wake up tomorrow to chatter claiming that Paris Saint-Germain and not the Reds are his likeliest destination after all.
Still, Liverpool very much do need a player like Diomande, and his performance on Sunday will only increase feelings that he’s a player the Reds should or even must sign—and increase the disappointment if in the end it somehow comes to pass that they don’t manage to get a deal done.
