How Liverpool rebooted Luis Diaz with Slot sessions, tactical tweaks – and a song

Luis Diaz is enjoying the best scoring streak of his Anfield career.

The Colombian has netted five goals in Liverpool’s opening five league matches — only Michael Owen (2000-01) and Mohamed Salah (2020-21) with six have been more prolific for the club at the same stage of a Premier League campaign.

Rested for the midweek Carabao Cup rout of West Ham United, Diaz is set to return against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux on Saturday.

The 27-year-old has long been a fans’ favourite at Anfield thanks to his dribbling and tenacity out of possession, but one regular complaint was the lack of end product. His tally of 24 goals in 98 appearances for Liverpool prior to this season was underwhelming for a player of his ability.

So what’s behind Diaz becoming a much more potent force in the final third?

“Luis looks hungrier to score goals,” Liverpool vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold told reporters after Diaz’s double in last Saturday’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth. “Maybe getting new players kind of lights a fire under you to make sure you’re working hard for your spot. That’s what the manager has told us. He’s getting himself into the right areas and he’s making the right decisions.”

Competition for places always helps to focus minds and, with Cody Gakpo also in outstanding form, the battle for the left-sided attacking role is arguably the most keenly contested in Slot’s squad.

The Dutch head coach wanted six elite attackers so he had cover right across the front line, and the signing of Italy international Federico Chiesa from Juventus has provided him with that.

Diaz was the subject of reported interest from Barcelona in the summer, but no bids were forthcoming and Liverpool were adamant that they had no interest in listening to offers. Diaz also never gave any indication that he was unsettled.

Liverpool came close to signing Anthony Gordon from Newcastle United in late June, but the England international would have complemented the attackers already on board rather than replace anyone.

One of the key reasons why Liverpool appointed Slot was his track record of improving players at Feyenoord and they felt there was untapped potential with Diaz.

The attacker’s Premier League record since arriving from Porto in a £50million ($66.9m) deal in January 2022 shows how his output has spiked dramatically this season.

There are caveats. Diaz’s 2022-23 season was wrecked by a knee injury, while last season he had to deal with his father, Luis Manuel Diaz, being held hostage for 12 days after his abduction by the National Liberation Army in Colombia.

This season is also a low sample size of games, and Liverpool are yet to play any of last season’s top seven. It may be that Diaz reverts to the mean as the season progresses.

Even so, he does seem to be showcasing much greater composure, calmness and a clinical edge in the final third.

Where he’s receiving the ball is also significant. If we compare where he received the ball last season to this term in the graphic below, it is noticeable that he is getting on the ball in more central areas and in slightly more advanced positions. 

The positions of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson have altered, too. Both are now deployed in more natural full-back roles compared with the inverted position Alexander-Arnold occupied last season, which had a knock-on effect on Robertson’s positioning. Having the support of a frequently overlapping left-back makes it easier for Diaz to roam. 

The signs were promising in Liverpool’s pre-season fixture against Sevilla. For Diaz’s second goal, he drifted inside to support Diogo Jota and received a pass from him. In a swift move he wrong-footed the defender and fired a shot into the top corner. 

His movement into a central area was also crucial to his first goal against Bournemouth. He latched onto Ibrahima Konate’s pass, controlled and finished the chance.

Through individual analysis meetings and time spent on the training field, Slot and his staff have worked closely with Diaz to try to get him into more dangerous positions where he can hurt teams. There’s been less of cutting inside from the left flank and shooting from the edge of the box.

They have encouraged him to get himself between the posts more often, so it is no coincidence that his expected goals per shot has risen from 0.13 to 0.19.

That is not to suggest he didn’t last season. He scored in Liverpool’s opening two games in 2023-24 with classical striker goals – against Chelsea and Bournemouth – that fuelled this same type of conversation before the goal flow dried up.

As his shot map shows, virtually all of his eight league goals were scored between the posts. 

It was the composure and conviction that was lacking. Repeatedly, Diaz attempted shots in the close proximity of a defender that were blocked, or his efforts lacked precision. There were promising signs towards the end of last season, but a combination of the woodwork, poor finishing and good goalkeeping meant he finished the campaign without scoring in his final nine games in all competitions.

His shot map this season contains only two efforts from outside the area and the cluster of speculative, low xG attempts from the left corner of the box have disappeared (so far). They have been replaced with higher quality chances.

Diaz has, in the past, been guilty of over-complicating shooting situations and decreasing the quality of a chance. This season, he is taking more time to set himself while making quicker, clearer decisions. 

That sounds like a contradiction, but a number of his goals illustrate the point.

Against Brentford, after being played through by Jota, Diaz showed no hesitation when he received the ball and the finish was simple yet emphatic.

Composure has not always been a feature of his finishing, but against Manchester United, after starting the move by winning the ball back from Casemiro, he finished it by caressing a first time shot beyond Andre Onana at the near post — an unusual finish for Diaz, who tends to lash the ball in. 

For his second goal against Bournemouth he executed the touch and finish perfectly, undisturbed by Kepa Arrizabalaga rushing towards him.

His Bournemouth goals prompted the song in his honour to boom around Anfield. To the tune of the Italian folk song Bella Ciao, the words resonate more now that Diaz has hit such a purple patch.

His name is Lucho
He came from Porto
He came to score
Came to score
Came to score, score, score
He’s Luis Diaz
He’s from Barrancas
Now he plays for Liverpool
Na na na na na…

It was first performed by Anfield-based musician Andy Hodgson at Taggy’s Bar close to the stadium in May 2023 and has grown in popularity since. Long-serving stadium announcer George Sephton played it after the final whistle against Bournemouth in tribute to Liverpool’s match-winner.

🇨🇴 🎶 “His name is Lucho!” –

The new Luis Diaz song is 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WzxnOL2DUX

— This Is Anfield (@thisisanfield) August 20, 2023

The outpouring of affection means a lot to Diaz and at the end of last season he got in touch with Hodgson.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I answered the video call. I nearly dropped the phone,” Hodgson tells The Athletic. “There was Lucho looking at me saying: ‘I just want to say thank you so much for the song, much love’.

“A lad at Taggy’s wrote the initial version to Bella Ciao and asked me to play it. I just changed a few words to make it flow better. Starting a new song is always risky as you don’t know how it’s going to go down. But the first video went viral and it took off from there.

“Standing in the stadium last weekend hearing everyone sing the song was proper mad and hard for me to process. But the song works because it’s so catchy.”

As well as having a close bond with the fans, Diaz is happy and settled off the pitch with girlfriend Gera Ponce and their young daughters Roma, two, and Charlotte, who was born in January.

Close friendships with the club’s South American contingent of Darwin Nunez, Alexis Mac Allister, Alisson and their families help being so far away from home. Those players frequently eat together in the canteen at Kirkby along with Jota and goalkeeping coach Taffarel.

Although he’s still not confident enough to do interviews in English, Diaz’s language skills have improved and he’s an upbeat presence around the training ground.

There’s been speculation about a possible new contract, but with Diaz’s current deal — which sees him earn significantly more than the £55,000 a week suggested in some outlets — running until the summer of 2027 that’s not currently viewed by Liverpool as a priority. The more pressing concern is sorting out the futures of Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Alexander-Arnold.

His flying start to the new Premier League season is a source of great pride and discussion in his homeland.

“Luis is a very different player now to the one who first arrived at Liverpool,” says Carlos Aleman, a reporter and presenter for Bogota-based TV channel Win Sports.

“He’s still a fast, powerful player but he has more goalscoring ability. It’s something we weren’t expecting. We had some doubts over how everything would go with the new manager, and whether other players would get picked ahead of him, but he has adjusted to new tactics, new ideas very easily.

“Colombian players don’t usually stay at one club for too long. But we’re very happy he stayed at Liverpool after all the speculation this summer. It’s definitely the best place for him.”

Luis Diaz has flourished with Colombia as well (Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP via Getty Images)

Aleman believes being part of a resurgent Colombia side has helped Diaz’s form at club level. They reached the final of the Copa America in July and are still unbeaten in qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, having beaten Argentina 2-1 earlier this month.

“Luis is one of the leaders of the national team,” he adds. “The star is still James Rodriguez, he’s in the middle and everything moves around him, but Luis is the better player currently.”

At Liverpool, the Colombian is viewed in the same bracket as Konate, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai when it comes to players whose levels have surged after difficult periods at the end of the Klopp era.

For context, it took Diaz until mid-February to reach five league goals in 2023-24. So far this season only Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (10) has out-scored him in the top flight.

Signed as Sadio Mane’s successor wide on the left, Diaz hadn’t previously looked capable of providing that kind of firepower. Mane netted 20 or more in four of his six seasons at Anfield.

But through a mixture of tactical tweaks, man-management, an injection of belief and a growing sense of belonging, Diaz is now a very different prospect.

(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)