Liverpool winger trained with the squad in Hong Kong but was not named in the matchday squad for the friendly
Liverpool manager Arne Slot has confirmed that Luis Diaz was left out of the squad for Saturday’s 4-2 defeat to AC Milan due to ongoing uncertainty around his future.
Bayern Munich are interested in signing Diaz, with their €67.5m bid for the winger turned down earlier this month. Reports from Germany are that Bayern are preparing a second bid.
Diaz trained with the Liverpool squad in Hong Kong but was not named in the matchday squad for the friendly.
Slot said the decision to drop him was because of his transfer situation.
“There are a lot of rumours around it lately and I cannot go into that. He is training really well with us but we have decided, for now, not to play him yet. I cannot comment much more than that.”
When asked whether Diaz wants to leave Liverpool, Slot replied that he was “not the person to ask”.
Liverpool’s stance on Diaz all summer has been that he is not for sale and they consider him a highly valuable member of the squad. They want to keep him until 2027 when his contract runs out, unless there is an offer too attractive to resist.
Darwin Nunez was also absent from the Milan game, but Slot revealed that his exclusion was due to a minor injury rather than his future.
Nunez has scored in every pre-season game he has played so far, including a first-half hat-trick in the behind-closed-doors friendly against Stoke City last Sunday.
“Darwin has trained really well and played a few good games for us already this pre-season,” said Slot. “He was injured so we didn’t want to take the risk.”
