With the transfer window slamming shut next Monday, speculation is ramping up over some of the hottest properties in European football. Some of the stars of the game are in competitive action this week in the AFCON knockout stage and the South American World Cup Qualifiers. One such player is Luis Diaz, who lines up for Colombia tomorrow night.
The Porto winger has previously been linked with a move to Merseyside. Reports this week suggested that Diaz would prefer to join the Reds over Premier League rivals Tottenham.
On the latest episode of our Journo Insight Show, we asked Goal’s Neil Jones on the chances of seeing Diaz in a red shirt in the near future.
Neil said:
“I expect there’s going to be some business at Tottenham. We [goal.com] reported earlier in the window the figures that they are talking about for Luis Diaz are just not reasonable. Certainly for this month, maybe in the future, who knows? I think the story from Tottenham was that they were below Porto’s asking price anyway. I think the player would rather play for Liverpool than Tottenham, but I think that you could put that for an awful lot of footballers in the European market. I’ve been sceptical of Liverpool and Luis Diaz links because I don’t really see where he fits in, but we’ll keep an eye on it. I wouldn’t be expecting him to come to Anfield this month, certainly.”
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Porto’s financial model is based on bringing through top Portuguese and South American talent and selling them on at a big profit. This suggests that Diaz will certainly make a move at some point, but not in this window if his asking price is not being met. The 25-year-old has a lot of attributes that would make him a potential target for the Reds. He has the majority of his career ahead of him, has Champions League experience, and put in some terrific performances in last year’s Copa America. His goal output is similar to that of Mo Salah’s before he joined Liverpool, and much like Mo, he prefers to cut inside from the wing and offer a goal threat. Much depends on the resolution to Salah and Sadio Mane’s respective contract talks. Diaz is not likely to want to move to Anfield for big money, only to be behind Sadio in the pecking order. A player with an asking price of over £50million would expect to be in the first XI, and that is not something Liverpool can guarantee at this moment in time.
