Transfer Fee – £50 Million

Preferred Position – Left Wing

Preferred Foot – Right

2020/21 Season League Stats – 30 appearances, Six goals Five assists

2021/22 Season League Stats – 18 appearances, 14 goals Five assists

Born in Barrancas, Colombia on January 1997, Díaz first taste of international football came in 2015 when he was selected to play in the Colombia squad for the Copa Americana de Pueblos Indígenas, a tournament for the Indigenous communities of Latin America by virtue of his Wayuu ethnicity. After impressing in the tournament, he joined Atletico Junior for a trial period and after overcoming malnutrition at an early age, he made his debut for their farm team Barranquilla FC in 2016. After 34 appearances for Barranquilla he was promoted to Atletico Junior’s senior team where he made 67 appearances, scoring 15 goals.

Díaz signed for Porto in July 2019 for a fee of €7 million with his compatriot and national team coach, Queiroz, playing a pivotal role. He made his debut in August and in his first season in Portugal he racked up 50 appearances in all competitions scoring 14 goals and assisting seven as Porto won the league title. The 2020/21 season saw a slight dip with his 47 appearances yielding 11 goals and six assists.

Díaz really came to the fore this season as Porto’s talisman, scoring in a 1-1 away draw against their bitter rivals Sporting CP and also scoring the only goal of the game against AC Milan in the Champions League. He started this season on fire with five goals in six games and went on to hit double digits in just 12 games. He was named the league's Player of the Month and Forward of the Month for October and November and also won ‘Goal of the Month’ for his strike against Vit. Guimarães. In December he was again named the league's Forward of the Month after scoring four goals and providing three assists.

The 24-year old has also featured prominently for Colombia with 21 appearances and was the joint top goalscorer of the Copa America 2021 alongside Messi. These goals included the opening goal in a 2–1 first round loss to hosts Brazil and a goal in a semi-final against Argentina. He also scored twice in a 3–2 victory over Peru in the third-place play-off match.

Liverpool have signed the youngster for a reported fee of £50 million (£37.5 million initial fee + 12.5m in addons) and while Klopp is known to take his time with new signings, there is no doubt that Díaz possesses the quality and attributes to slot in perfectly to their system. A right-footed player whose style is to cut in and shoot, he would present an immediate threat to Mané and Jota’s spots in the starting lineup.

In terms of underlying numbers, he averaged 2.5 shots per game in his first two seasons at Porto but this number shot up to 3.74 in the current campaign. He also averaged 1.57 shots on target (SoT) per 90 minutes this season. No player in the Portuguese league took more shots than his 62 and he was also second for SoT (26). He averaged 0.55 ‘Expected Goals’ (xG) per game, as the Stats Sandbox image above shows only Salah (0.73) and Calvert-Lewin (0.71) can better that number though that number is inflated by penalties. Mané, who’s place appears to be the most under threat managed 0.49.

As the above image from our Fixture Analyser shows, Liverpool's next three opponents Leicester, Burnley and Norwich look great for goals but they do have a blank fixture in gameweek 27 by virtue of their involvement in the League Cup Final. While investment in the youngster is perhaps a wait and watch situation, those with Jota in their squads should surely be feeling nervous with another element of rotation added in along with the famed trio of Mané, Firmino and Salah all being available.