“The truth is that I know very little about Barcelona at the moment,” the father of Liverpool forward Luis Díaz told Win Sports last week, as translated by Goal. “It is true that Luis is a loyal Barcelona fan and it would be his dream to go there. So far I would like to thank Porto and Liverpool for the way they welcomed him and received him…CONTINUE READING>>...CONTINUE READING
“Luis is a player who finds it easy to win over because of the way he is, because of his humility, his work, his dedication, he is a very disciplined player, thank God.
There would be no problem if Luis came to Barcelona because it is a top team and one of the best in the world.”
The report from liverpool.com has it that for Liverpool fans, there’s nothing especially concerning about these comments in and of themselves. As Luis Manuel Díaz says, it’s all quiet on the transfer front for now, whether in terms of club-to-club or club-to-player talks, and besides, Liverpool has all the cards with the player’s contract running until 2027.
It won’t have any intention of selling, and there’s no firm indication that Díaz wants to leave, even if he does ‘support’ Barcelona.JAMB Result
The remarks do, however, point to a broader issue, not just concerning Díaz, but all of Liverpool’s forwards not named Mohamed Salah, who’s probably the second name on any given team sheet after goalkeeper Alisson.
Jürgen Klopp is blessed with arguably the best attacking quintet of any manager in world football (Díaz, Darwin Núñez, Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota alongside Salah), enabling him to rotate according to fatigue levels and the characteristics of each opponent with next-to-no drop-off — one top-class player is simply replaced by another.
He also, of course, has the option to make enviable personnel changes within games if plan A isn’t working, unleashing fearsome attackers on weary defenses.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has already offered some indication of the problems that may arise. City is arguably the best match for Liverpool when it comes to attacking depth, but it has lost five players from those ranks across the last three years — Cole Palmer, Riyad Mahrez, Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres and Leroy Sané.
Granted, each of those players may have left for slightly different reasons — Mahrez probably felt his journey with the club was complete after winning the treble last year, and Sané had a difficult relationship with Guardiola — but concerns over game time were front and center.
The Athletic reports that they played a part in Sané and Torres’ exits, while Sterling and Palmer were clearly dissatisfied with limited opportunities in their final seasons at the club, even though they were at completely different stages of their careers…CONTINUE READING>>
