Slot confirms the reason behind Luis Diaz's absence from AC Milan friendly
Reading Time: 2min | Sat. 26.07.25. | 22:28
The Colombian winger missed the pre-season friendly. He's still on the exit doors of the clubs
Liverpool boss Arne Slot has confirmed Luis Diaz was left out of the pre-season friendly defeat to AC Milan due to interest from Bayern Munich.
At the same time, the Reds boss confirmed Darwin Nunez's absence was merely precautionary, saying he expects the striker to play a part in Japan against Yokohama Marinos next week.
Diaz was absent from Saturday's 4-2 loss to the Rossoneri, a few days after talks between Liverpool and Bayern earlier this week.
The Reds turned down the first £60m offer earlier this month, but the German giants are now expected to return with an improved offer.
"In Lucho's situation, it was [linked to his future], yeah," Slot said after the game in Hong Kong. "There are a lot of rumours around it lately and I cannot go into that. But he is training really well with us and we have decided, for now, not to play him yet.
"In Darwin's situation, he has trained really well also and played a few good games for us already this pre-season. He was injured so we didn't want to take the risk and it was also the same with Wataru Endo, trained with us all week but we didn't want to take a risk with him either.
"So it is part of pre-season, the boys need to get towards match fitness and that is a thin balance, a thin line sometimes. We thought it was smarter for Darwin and Wata to sit it out today but I assume they will be with us when we are in Japan," concluded Slot.
