The January transfer market has often been pitched as a place where desperate clubs trade to salvage their seasons.
Former Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, questioned its value, once “all big transfers happen in the summer.”
Liverpool could be begging to differ.
The midseason arrival of Luis Diaz is a major factor behind the English club’s ability to maintain its improbable charge towards an unprecedented quadruple of major trophies.
And nowhere was this more exemplified than in the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday.
For once, Liverpool were in trouble, going 2–0 down at halftime and playing so badly that when manager Jurgen Klopp asked his assistant Peter Kravitz to find an example of players following pre-game tactical instructions. When asked for, the answer was: “I can’t find one.”
Enter Diaz.
The speedy Colombian winger provided Liverpool with energy, propelling the team straight onto the front foot at the start of the second half. He scored one of three goals in the span of 12 minutes to turn the match around, as the Reds won 3–2 and went 5–2 on aggregate in the third Champions League final in five years.
The 45 million euro ($50 million) outlay to bring Diaz from Porto looks like a deal.
“You don’t expect instant miracles from players like these,” Klopp has said, referring to January signings like Diaz. “But that’s not too far from doing exactly that.”
It’s not just what Diaz is doing on and off the ball – his work rate is as impressive as his amazing first touch and trickery – but it’s also how his introduction is affecting his teammates.
With Diaz becoming the Left’s first choice, Sadio Mane is pushed inside a mobile center and is in his best spell of the season. Indeed, Diaz and Mane are the most well-known members of Liverpool’s front three and the team’s top scorer this season, overtaking Mohamed Salah.
Andrew Robertson, who plays behind Diaz as an attacker, is also making the most of the space created by Diaz’s defenders.
Diaz’s energy is infectious, too. He seems a perfect fit for a high-pressure, hard-running approach backed by Klopp.
“I was talking to James Milner about new guy Diaz. And he said that within seconds he was in motion,” former Liverpool striker Michael Owen told BT Sport. “He looked, he looked around, going up and off as he went down in training.
“He said he was a Liverpool player straight from the first training session.”
Of course Diaz’s full-fledged debut against Leicester at Anfield on February 10, with some of his touches and flicks, was about to receive “wow” from Liverpool fans.
Diaz is an entertainer. He brought a long pass with the instep of his right foot that he tucked behind his left foot during the recent Merseyside derby against Everton. His acrobatic scissor kick was used by Divok Origi to get the second goal that day.
A week earlier, Diaz had tormented Manchester City in a brilliant first-half performance in Liverpool’s 3-2 win over Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final and then opened the league a few days later in a 4-0 victory over Manchester United.
Diaz’s rise comes with a slight dip in performance from Portugal’s Diogo Jota, whose arrival at the start of the 2020-21 season finally broke the long-established front three of Salah, Mane and Roberto Firmino.
Firmino, whom Klopp had valued for his rate of work, could now be down as the No. 5 attacker at Liverpool, just as the team has strength in depth.
Diaz, 25, will end the season playing more than 60 matches for club and country, starting with his three appearances for Colombia at the Copa América in July.
He already has a League Cup winner’s medal – after opening the final against Chelsea, which Liverpool won on penalties in February – and now plays in the FA Cup final on 14 May and the Champions League final on 28 May for Chelsea. There is a high probability of starting against. And let’s not forget that Liverpool are also challenging for the Premier League title, with Klopp’s side one point behind City with four games to go.
Liverpool are on the verge of delivering possibly the biggest season ever by a European club and Diaz, who has been at Anfield for less than four months, is at the center of it.
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