Luis Diaz to Bayern: A Smart Sale by Liverpool

Luis Diaz is a good player. He may improve Bayern Munich. Yet the deal Liverpool pulled off for the 28-year-old is another nifty bit of footwork from Richard Hughes.
The sporting director wrung every ounce of value out of the transfer by getting £65.5 million for the Colombian. That money will be reinvested. The summer’s spending is not over yet. Far from it.
Diaz hit the ground running when he joined in the January window three years ago from Porto. There was always the sense that he was just passing through, though.
It was not long before he was flirting with Barcelona. That’s understandable. Many South Americans dream of playing at the Camp Nou. You could never criticise his efforts but Merseyside was a pitstop rather than a destination.
Liverpool are shopping for performers of the highest calibre these days – and making a profit on those who are a little short of those elevated heights. Diaz is one of the latter group.

The Shadow of Sadio Mane

To be fair, he had big shoes to fill. Sadio Mane was brilliant on the left side of the attack during the Senegalese’s six years at Anfield. The relationship between Mane and Andy Robertson probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves when discussing Liverpool’s renaissance under Jurgen Klopp. By contrast, Diaz and Robertson never came anywhere near to establishing a similar sort of relationship.

Read Tony’s Full Article…

This is an abridged version; the full article is available on our ‘It Was Always… Liverpool’ Substack page: