Liverpool are reportedly keen on signing Yan Diomande this summer, with the Telegraph claiming the 19-year-old rb leipzig forward is at the top of Arne Slot’s wish-list. The Premier League champions are also tracking Newcastle United winger Anthony Gordon and Paris Saint-Germain wide man Bradley Barcola as they weigh up options for the left and right sides of attack.
Diomande has put together a strong first season in Germany, scoring 13 goals and adding ten assists in all competitions for RB Leipzig. He also has nine appearances for Ivory Coast, and his rise has put him firmly on Liverpool’s radar as the club looks for pace, directness and end product in wide areas.
The size of the deal would be the first major obstacle. Diomande is understood to have a release clause of £86m, a figure that would put him among the more expensive young attackers in Europe and far above the reported £17.3m Leipzig paid last summer when they matched his clause to bring him in from Leganes. That fee tells its own story about how quickly his stock has risen.
Slot has not hidden why wingers are central to Liverpool’s planning. “One of the reasons why everyone is talking about wingers is because Mo is leaving,” he said, adding that it “makes complete sense to think about [signing] at least one.” He also linked last season’s title success to the work done out wide, saying winger output was vital to Liverpool winning the league and that modern football increasingly leans on wide threats.
That context matters because Liverpool are trying to prepare for a possible reshaping of the attack, not simply add depth. Slot has also said the team lacked pace and directness in wide areas after Luis Diaz’s departure, and he pointed back to the balance that made Liverpool hard to play against when they had threats on both flanks. Last season, he said, the style depended heavily on winger-full-back combinations, but this term the end product has not matched the previous campaign.
Gordon remains in the picture as well. Liverpool were linked with the Newcastle winger last summer, and he is expected to leave St. James’ Park this summer, with Bayern Munich and Barcelona also being linked with a move. Barcola is another name on the list, giving Liverpool several very different routes to address the same problem if Salah moves on and the club decides Diomande’s release clause is too steep.
The next step is obvious enough: Liverpool must decide whether Diomande is worth the full price of that release clause or whether Gordon or Barcola better fits the market and the moment. For now, the story is less about speculation than about a club admitting, in public, that its wings are changing and that Salah’s departure would force a serious decision rather than a quick fix.
