Arne Slot has confirmed Luis Díaz was left out of Liverpool’s 4-2 defeat to AC Milan because of ongoing transfer speculation, as talk of a move to Bayern Munich gathers pace.
The Colombian forward travelled with the squad to Hong Kong but did not feature in the match, the third time he’s missed a pre-season game this summer. His absence had fans asking questions before kickoff, and now Slot has addressed it directly.
“There’s a lot of rumours around him lately and I cannot go into that,” the Liverpool manager said after the match. “He’s training really well with us, but we’ve decided for now not to play him yet.”
The Dutch manager also revealed he’s spoken with Díaz about the situation: “I’m used to talking to most of my players on a regular basis. Like I said, Lucho is training really well, and we’ve decided that he’s not playing at the moment in the games. I cannot comment much more about that.”
Asked whether Díaz wants to leave, Slot added: “That is not the person to ask, me.”
According to multiple reports, Luis Díaz is pushing to leave this summer and is hoping Bayern Munich returns with a bigger offer. Liverpool have already rejected a bid worth €67.5 million from the German side, and earlier this window, Barcelona also had an approach turned down.
Díaz had his best season for Liverpool last year, scoring 17 goals and helping the club win the Premier League title.
Darwin Núñez, who scored against Preston and hit a hat-trick in the Stoke game, was also absent against Milan, but for different reasons.
Arne Slot confirmed: “In Darwin’s situation, he has trained also really well and played a few good games for us already this season. But he was injured, so we didn’t want to take the risk.”
The same applied to Wataru Endo. “He trained with us for the whole week, but we didn’t want to take a risk with him as well,” Slot said. “I assume they will be there with us when we are in Japan playing the next game.”
Liverpool will face Yokohama F. Marinos next in Tokyo on Wednesday.
