Liverpool FINALLY make Luis Diaz decision

Liverpool have been tossing and turning when it comes to make a decision about Luis Diaz.

He is a player in a polarising position, since he's clearly an important squad asset, but his age and goal returns make offering him a new contract difficult and his transfer value is pretty high right now.

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Offers have been made for Diaz to move elsewhere from Barcelona and Bayern Munich and we are led to believe the Saudis are interested as well, although Germany appears to be his likely destination.

But for the time being, Liverpool have kept their cards close to their chest, reiterating their intention to keep him and not offer him a new contract, while stating that a €100m offer would be tempting.

However, the club has now made a decision on him which could give us some insight on his future.

Liverpool make Luis Diaz decision

We are still in the dark as to whether he leaves or not, but the club held a behind closed-doors friendly on Sunday afternoon against Stoke City and the Colombian was not in Arne Slot's squad.

An official Liverpool teamsheet, posted by The Anfield Buzz on X, shows that 25 players were named, but Diaz was not one of them - a bizarre situation since he was pictured in training this week.

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So why might he have been absent? Well, he could easily have injured, or simply received a knock and Slot didn't feel like playing him was worth the risk of worsening his fitness, which makes sense.

But the speculation regarding his future might also be a reason. On Saturday, we saw Eddie Howe take a similar approach with Alexander Isak in Newcastle's pre-season game against Celtic, with the English manager claiming he wanted to take him out of the spotlight, when it only made things worse.

Of course, we don't know what the official explanation with Diaz will be, but the latest transfer reports about him are suggesting that he might be close to a full agreement with Bayern.

If this were the case, then Liverpool would need to get used to succeeding without him in games and if his mind is elsewhere, then it would have been unfair to have a distracted player in the squad.

Cody Gakpo and Rio Ngumoha have been let loose on the left-wing so far in Liverpool's preseason campaign and it has long been considered that Diaz is an asset that the team can survive without.

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We now might be a little bit closer to working out what is going to happen to him and if the reports are accurate, then the next few days could lead to a decisive moment in Liverpool's summer window.

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