Luis Diaz is said to be a January target but we remain doubtful the club plans on signing anyone next month.
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past year, which might be an entirely reasonable reaction to the current state of the world if we’re being entirely honest, you may have heard that Liverpool will be losing a few players to the Africa Cup of Nations.
Key for many will be the departures of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané early in January, a situation that has seen the Reds linked off and on with potential attacking reinforcements, with today’s supposed target being FC Porto’s 24-year-old winger Luis Diaz.
According to FourFourTwo at least, the man dubbed the Colombian Ronaldo is the player more than any that Liverpool want—though they also note that he’d cost a great deal of money and is also meant to be a target of Manchester United and Bayern Munich.
We have our doubts. Starting with the fact that while discussing whether Liverpool would consider signing unvaccinated players recently, manager Jürgen Klopp said they wouldn’t but that he hadn’t given it much thought as they aren’t close to signing anybody.
There’s also the fact that in the past, Klopp and Liverpool have been highly resistant to the idea of signing players to cover short-term gaps in the squad, though it’s always possible that a top summer target who was available could be brought in a little early.
If we were betting on it, we’d say it’s a club or player using Liverpool’s name—and the fact everyone knows they’ll be without two key forwards next month—for their own purposes, namely to induce another potential buyer or as leverage in contract negotiations.
The nice thing, perhaps, is that if any signing is meant to cover for Salah and Mané when they depart for AFCoN, we shouldn’t have long to wait to know if a deal is happening given it would serve little purpose to have such cover arrive late next month.
