Liverpool’s attacking evolution
It’s been a whirlwind few days for LFC fans, with the signing of Diaz and potential signing of Carvalho but what does it mean for our attack moving forward? I’ve seen many question the futures of both Mane and Firmino with the signing of Diaz but personally, I don’t see it that way. People forget Mane played on the right in his first season.
What I do think the signing of Diaz means is that both Minamino and Origi will be gone in the summer, if not before. That then leaves us with five top quality forwards, who (at a push) could all play in every position across the front three and then some promising youngsters coming through to back them up. There’s more than enough game time to keep the five of them happy and crucially, for the first time in as long as I can remember, we now have proper depth, without the level of quality falling off a cliff. We now have players capable of filling in for, or coming off the bench for with very little, if any drop in quality at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Origi and he’s been a huge player for us at times but ultimately, he just isn’t really suited to our system and Mini, as much as I like the lad and think he’s a good honest pro, he’s just not quite cut out for the highest level in my opinion. He’s a good player but we’re now dining at Europe’s top table and the lad is just a level below that in my opinion.
So what for the futures of Sadio and Bobby? Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if both were allowed to just see out their contracts. Assuming Salah renews (and that’s a big IF) we would still have Salah, Jota and Diaz in their peak years and by that time the likes of Kaide Gordon will have either proved they’re good enough or we’ll be back in the market but we’ll still be in the market while already having a settled front three.
The Diaz deal has come at a good time in my opinion. We flexed our muscles to quickly get a big deal over the line, preventing our top summer target joining another club, its lifted the fan base and while I’ve never believed the rumours of Salah demanding we sign certain players in his contract negotiations, I could believe that he may have expressed concern over a lack of investment in recent years to remain competitive with City.
Ultimately then, I don’t see anything other than a huge win for us with the Diaz deal. We’ve signed a really exciting player who looks to be following our tried and tested model of Salah and Jota, of joining us just as he’s about to kick on to that next level, significantly improved our attacking squad depth and shown our ambition as a club once more. Minor tweaks is all this Liverpool squad needs now and along with our very obvious strategy of targeting the best young players in this country, the future looks very bright indeed. Walk on!
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