Liverpool have undergone plenty of change over the last few years.
They’ve changed managers, completely altered their first team squad and have even become Premier League champions again.
This season, much of the same was expected from Liverpool, especially with the amount of money they spent on new arrivals.
Players such as Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz were supposed to come in and make Liverpool a much better squad, but so far, that hasn’t been the case.
In fact, there are some fans even saying that a few mistakes were made in the summer regarding players that were moved on and brought in.
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Several members of Liverpool’s team last season wanted to leave for the good of their careers and, now, less than 10 games into the campaign, Theo Walcott has admitted that he can see why Luis Diaz wanted to leave Anfield.
Theo Walcott says he can understand Luis Diaz wanting to leave Liverpool to earn more money
Before the summer transfer window had even opened, there were plenty of rumours about where Diaz’s future could lie.
Many expected the Colombian to stick around at Liverpool and earn a new contract after a few games of the 2025-26 campaign.
In the end, however, with clubs such as Barcelona and Bayern Munich being linked with him, the winger, who cost Liverpool £37million to sign, chose to make the move to the Bundesliga.
The attacker was one of the Reds’ best players last season, and the £66million fee they got for him looked like a solid deal.
And now, while speaking on The US Overlap’s Podcast, former Everton man Walcott gave his thoughts on Diaz’s exit.
“I understand why he left because he’s probably one of the best wingers who was so direct, so unique, and he was probably the player at Liverpool that was not getting paid what he felt was right for someone of his ability,” he said.
“So, I understand as a player thinking, ‘Oh, I’m one of the best wingers in the country. I’ve won the Premier League. I should be getting paid.’
“And it comes, it does come down to that. I know. And it will as a player. And I think that’s a major factor.”
Liverpool are massively missing Luis Diaz this season
Even though Liverpool still have Cody Gakpo on the left, the fact that they don’t have a winger who likes to track back and defend is massively hindering the Anfield outfit this term.
Milos Kerkez is being left to deal with all of the opposition’s attacks while also being expected to create as many chances for their attackers as possible.
This is causing a lot of pressure to arise around the Reds’ defence, which then results in mistakes occurring, which is likely to be one of the main reasons why Ibrahima Konate has been so poor this term.
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This lack of defensive work from the team is causing Arne Slot’s men to concede more goals than they deserve to which makes earning any sort of points from their clashes close to impossible.
At the moment, it’s anyone’s guess what could happen, but one thing is for sure: if Liverpool still had Diaz among their ranks, they’d likely be in a much better position than they currently find themselves in.