Luis Diaz makes difference to revitalise formidable Liverpool attack

It’s not so much a question of how you improve upon arguably the best group of attacking players in European football, but why? When you already know that four of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota will not go into three, is it absolutely necessary to spend £37m on a fifth?

There were, in reality, quite a few good reasons why it made sense for Liverpool to sign Luis Diaz when they did. Most of all, there was the threat of being gazumped rather than doing the gazumping, but the age profiles and contractual situations of Salah, Mané and Firmino made another forward a necessity anyway, sooner or later at least. It’s not as if any supporters were turning their nose up at the sudden news of Diaz’s arrival either.

Nevertheless, it left Jurgen Klopp with a slightly top-heavy set of resources and a challenge to give all of his forward options the minutes that their prodigious talents deserve. You can have too much of a good thing, they say. Then again, maybe you can’t.

Signing Diaz early when in other circumstances a move could have been postponed until the summer is proving to be nothing like overkill, especially not after his crucial role in killing off a Champions League first leg that had briefly threatened to get away from him and his new team-mates.

Diaz not only restored a comfortable two-goal cushion with his late strike in the 3-1 victory, but he assisted the second, reading Trent Alexander-Arnold’s masterful crossfield pass brilliantly to cushion it across the face of goal with a diving header for an easy tap-in. El Quinto Beatle is very much part of the band.