Liverpool have FOUND star to replace Luis Diaz | OneFootball

Liverpool have found the star to replace Luis Diaz. The Colombian joined Bayern Munich this week.

Luis Diaz has joined Bayern Munich from Liverpool. It's a sizeable deal, too - around £65m.

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Diaz leaving the club always felt likely this summer after contract talks stalled and he entered the final two years on his deal. Reports that the Reds wanted to shakeup their attack only strengthened those feelings, too.

Well, they've certainly done that. Florian Wirtz has arrived as a new playmaker and Hugo Ekitike is a new centre-forward. Liverpool will do more business, too, as they look to move players on and find replacements.

But that latter part is key. Liverpool must replace stars who leave, especially as Arne Slot wants two options for every role.

Replacing Diaz should be incredibly expensive. But the Reds will instead do it for free.

Rio Ngumoha is the one

Everyone watching Liverpool in pre-season has the same takeaway: Rio Ngumoha is a star. The teenager, who doesn't turn 17 for another month, has been incredible from the left.

Of course, the hype around Ngumoha was enormous on arrival. He was one of the most talked-about stars in youth football which led to Liverpool grabbing him from Chelsea's academy.

His first season of youth football with the Reds went very well, too, and Anfield Watch understands he looked even better in training. So much so that Liverpool were removing him from training footage in order to keep the hype sustainable.

That hype is now on full display in pre-season. Ngumoha has been brilliant and scored again on Wednesday as Liverpool beat Yokohama.

It is quite clear, then, that he's ready. The worry for such a young player against senior players is that he couldn't match opponents physically - but that's clearly no concern.

Ngumoha looks dangerous every time he has the ball, isn't easily muscled out, and boasts the kind of confidence you'd want to see. If sets him up to be the ideal replacement for Diaz in the squad.

'In the squad' is the key part here - we don't believe Ngumoha should take over his minutes. Those should be split between Ekitike and Cody Gakpo, who is now undoubtedly the starting left-winger in the squad.

But as one of the six forwards? Ngumoha is ready and quite honestly, signing someone to play in front of him feels irresponsible at this stage.