Arne Slot CONFIRMS Luis Diaz’s absence from Liverpool’s pre-season defeat by AC Milan was linked to his future – with Bayern Munich in talks over big-money move

Luis Diaz was not noted 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 provide 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 because of 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 mentioned: ‘In Lucho’s scenario it was, yeah. There are plenty of rumours round it recently and I can not go into that. However he’s coaching very well with us and now we have determined, for now, to not play him but.

‘Does he wish to go away? I’m not the particular person to ask.’

Darwin Nunez, who additionally has an unsure future, joined his South American team-mate in lacking the defeat however Slot mentioned 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 subsequent sport.

Liverpool supervisor Arne Slot admitted that Diaz was not noted because of 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 season.

Slot added: ‘By way of depth, Ryan (Gravenberch) confirmed right this 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) can even play centre-back. Joe Gomez solely has a minor damage. He is been good for us final season as properly. We now have sufficient choices left but it surely’s true that Jarell Quansah left and we have not changed him but.’

Requested on transfers usually, Slot mentioned: ‘I mentioned 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’ll be able to see all over the place round us, within the Premier League and in Europe, these groups attempt to strengthen. If we do the identical as we did final 12 months then we in all probability will not be capable of win it once more so now we have to enhance the gamers nonetheless right here, whereas bringing in new power 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 had been on the right track for the Reds with Florian Wirtz and 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha the large positives to return out of the defeat. Liverpool now fly to Tokyo for the second leg of their pre-season tour of Asia.