Arne Slot confirmed Luis Diaz’s absence from Saturday’s pre-season friendly defeat to AC Milan was due to his uncertain Liverpool future
Luis Diaz has been linked with a move to Barcelona again this summer(Image: Getty Images)
Arne Slot has confirmed Luis Diaz was left out of the pre-season friendly defeat to AC Milan due to interest from Bayern Munich, with Liverpool now braced for another bid from the Bundesliga champions. But the Reds boss confirmed Darwin Nunez’s absence was merely precautionary, saying he expects the striker to play a part in Japan against Yokohama Marinos next week.
Diaz played no part in Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Rossoneri after talks resumed between Liverpool and Bayern earlier this week, and having turned down a bid shy of £60m earlier this month, the German giants are now expected to return with an improved offer. Diaz had initially been hopeful of opening contract talks with Anfield officials on the back of a campaign that saw him score 17 goals across all competitions, but the Reds have no intention of extending the terms for the 28-year-old, who remains on the same deal he signed when he joined in January 2022.
“In Lucho’s situation it was [linked to his future], yeah,” Slot said after the game in Hong Kong. “There are a lot of rumours around it lately and I cannot go into that. But he is training really well with us and we have decided, for now, not to play him yet.
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“In Darwin’s situation, he has trained really well also and played a few good games for us already this pre-season. He was injured so we didn’t want to take the risk and it was also the same with Wataru Endo, trained with us all week but we didn’t want to take a risk with him either.
“So it is part of pre-season, the boys need to get towards match fitness and that is a thin balance, a thin line sometimes. We thought it was smarter for Darwin and Wata to sit it out today but I assume they will be with us when we are in Japan.”
Slot added: “Yes [I’ve spoken to Diaz] but I am used to talking to most of my players on a regular basis. Like I said, Lucho is training really well but we’ve decided that he is best not playing at the moment in the games and I cannot comment much more than that. Does he want to leave? I am not the person to ask.”
Liverpool had been reluctant to sell the former Porto winger and had already rejected an advance from Barcelona this summer before Bayern’s interest was firmed up this month.