Luis Diaz was omitted of Liverpool’s squad for his or her pre-season defeat to AC Milan as a result of the ahead is in talks over a big-money transfer to Bayern Munich.
The Premier League champions, who misplaced 4-2 in Hong Kong, are braced for a second bid for Diaz after turning down an preliminary supply of simply shy of £58.5m – whereas the Colombian is believed to need an exit.
And he was banished from Liverpool’s 22-man squad on Saturday attributable to this, with Arne Slot saying they’ve determined to not play him whereas hypothesis continues.
Requested if the absence was linked to his future, Slot stated: ‘In Lucho’s state of affairs it was, yeah. There are plenty of rumours round it recently and I can’t go into that. However he’s coaching very well with us and we’ve got determined, for now, to not play him but.
‘Does he need to depart? I’m not the individual to ask.’
Darwin Nunez, who additionally has an unsure future, joined his South American team-mate in lacking the defeat however Slot stated that was right down to a minor damage. Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister additionally sat out with health points although each are anticipated to be match for the following recreation.
Luis Diaz was omitted of Liverpool’s squad for his or her pre-season defeat to AC Milan on Saturday
Liverpool supervisor Arne Slot admitted that Diaz was omitted attributable to uncertainty over his future
Diaz (second left) pictured on the Liverpool bench in Hong Kong throughout their 4-2 loss to Milan
However defender Joe Gomez has flown house to England with a minor Achilles damage which leaves Liverpool with simply two match centre backs with a clamour for them to dip additional into their pockets regardless of spending £295million already this summer time.
Slot added: ‘By way of depth, Ryan (Gravenberch) confirmed at the moment that he can play that place. He did it final season as properly. However though everyone knows that we favour him as a centre-back.
‘Wata (Endo) also can play centre-back. Joe Gomez solely has a minor damage. He is been good for us final season as properly. We have now sufficient choices left but it surely’s true that Jarell Quansah left and we have not changed him but.’
Requested on transfers usually, Slot stated: ‘I stated I used to be actually proud of the squad I had which we confirmed by not bringing in gamers final season and we received the league.
‘You may see in all places round us, within the Premier League and in Europe, these groups attempt to strengthen. If we do the identical as we did final yr then we in all probability will not have the ability to win it once more so we’ve got to enhance the gamers nonetheless right here, whereas bringing in new vitality and new weapons.
‘The brand new gamers have proven that within the time we have skilled collectively and the video games we have performed.
‘We’ll wait to see how Hugo (Ekitike) does that. Actually happy with what we did up till now but in addition actually happy we stored our gamers.’
Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo have been on course for the Reds with Florian Wirtz and 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha the massive positives to return out of the defeat. Liverpool now fly to Tokyo for the second leg of their pre-season tour of Asia.
