One former Liverpool player had his teammates ‘instantly raving’ with his efforts behind the scenes shortly after coming to Merseyside.
The Reds signed Luis Diaz in January 2022 and he struck six goals in his first half-season at Anfield before adding 35 more across the subsequent three years, including 13 on our way to Premier League glory last term (Transfermarkt).
He departed for Bayern Munich just over nine months ago and has continued to excel in Germany, with his team clinching the Bundesliga title and potentially only two wins away from adding the Champions League, and he’s undoubtedly been missed from Arne Slot’s side in this campaign.
In an article about the Colombian for The Telegraph, Dominic King highlighted the instant impression he made upon joining Liverpool four-and-a-bit years ago.
The reporter wrote: ‘What a difference he would have made to Liverpool this season. The first time he trained with the squad after joining them from Porto in January 2022, there were disbelieving looks about his intensity levels.
‘It was commonly accepted that new arrivals under Jürgen Klopp would need a period of adjustment to take in new methods, but Díaz was like a sprinter in the Olympic 100 metres final, out of the blocks on the “b” of the bang, and hard-to-impress new colleagues were instantly raving.’
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With Diaz thriving at Bayern while Liverpool have faltered this season, there’d been widespread gnashing of teeth from Kopites who can’t help but wonder how differently the campaign might’ve turned out if he’d still been at Anfield.
However, as King mentioned in his article for The Telegraph, it wasn’t for the want of trying from LFC to keep the Colombian, who’d wanted to move on to pastures new, and the Reds ultimately banked a £27m profit from his sale price compared to what he cost to sign from Porto.
The 29-year-old has made no secret of how keen he was to join Bayern last summer, and once his mind was made up about leaving, it may ultimately have done more harm than good to keep a player who was evidently eager to depart, much to Slot’s regret.
Of course we’d have loved to have Diaz at Liverpool this season – his all-action dynamism in the final third has been sorely missed – but at a time when FSG were assembling what looked like being a formidable attack, there was a general acceptance over the Colombia international’s exit.
He hasn’t looked back since, but as is always the way at LFC, great players are ultimately replaced as the team evolves from one generation to the next, with fans forever appreciating the efforts of those who contributed so much to tangible success for the club.
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