Barcelona remain undeterred in their pursuit of Luis Diaz despite running into a barrier over the transfer fee.
The Liverpool forward enjoyed an excellent season for Arne Slot’s title-winning side, contributing 17 goals and eight assists in all competitions.
That represents the best return in front of goal the Reds have had out of the Colombian international, who who is Liverpool’s sixth-most expensive signing ever following his move from Porto in 2022.
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Barcelona want Luis Diaz to push for move away from Liverpool
Diaz’s excellent form at Anfield last season has now led Barcelona to make him their ‘main target’, according to the imaginatively-titled Spanish outlet Sport.
The equally appropriately-named Sport Witness have been keeping an eye on the newspaper and have relayed that Wednesday’s edition reports that Barcelona are ‘confident that the deal will go ahead’ for Diaz.
That’s in spite of that fact that so far, Liverpool are said to be holding out for €80m (£67.3m) in exchange for Diaz’s services – a figure that Barcelona are not believed to be willing to rise to.
The ace up Barca’s sleeve, if you want to call it that, is twofold. So…aces. We’ve played Balatro, we get how cards work.
Firstly, Barca believe that Liverpool will eventually decide they would rather have a still-very-large amount of money shy of the asking price than miss out on selling Diaz altogether.
That’s thanks to Liverpool expecting to have a busy and expensive transfer window: Jeremie Frimpong has already joined, while they have also made a massive bid of around €130m (£109m) for Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz.
Barca are said to confident that getting the Wirtz deal done would put Liverpool in a selling mood – particularly if Diaz himself makes entreaties to be allowed to leave.
Slight issue there is that Liverpool are already said to be well aware that Diaz wants to go to Barcelona, who now presumably want him to kick and scream and refuse to eat his dinner until he gets his way.
