19-year-old star is Liverpool’s new Luis Diaz in the making

Long gone are the days when Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah were tearing up the Premier League at Liverpool.

Astonishingly, from 197 appearances together at Anfield, the long-feared trio have combined to score a devastating 338 goals, with Virgil van Dijk once describing them working together as a “scary” prospect to defend against.

Now, there is very much a work in progress up front for Arne Slott’s men, with both Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz remaining scoreless in Premier League matches since joining.

Furthermore, fellow summer recruit Hugo Ekitiki has been largely inconsistent on Merseyside, with no league goals beside his name from his last five matches.

Last summer also saw a lot of change in attack, with Darwin Nunez finally able to put himself out of his misery at Anfield. But far from being the South American scapegoat, the Reds also bid farewell to loyal servant Luis Diaz, who is now excelling at Bayern Munich, much to Liverpool’s continued dismay.

Diaz’s electric form at Bayern

Besides the memorable frustrations that Nunez regularly provided, Diaz’s starring role at Liverpool while he was still there could be seen as slipping under the radar, to some extent.

However, Diaz is still labeled a ‘very special’ talent at Anfield by Jurgen Klopp for good reason, with the one-time Premier League winner amassing 41 goals and 23 assists in 148 appearances at Anfield.

Before moving to the Bundesliga, he also participated in his most productive season in the English Premier League, where he scored 13 goals.

The same clinical quality has clearly followed him to Bavaria, where Diaz has already registered 11 goals and five assists in his new shade of red from just 17 appearances.

Worryingly, Isak, Wirtz and Equitiki have only contributed 11 goals between them in England, with the Colombian winger proving to be a stroke of genius for Vincent Kompany’s men in the £65.5m range.

To make matters worse, all three of those reported poor performances at Liverpool cost far more to acquire, with the 28-year-old already being hailed as a ‘week-in-week-out’ star by his new manager.

Fortunately, Slot and Co. may be preparing a local version of their former striker.

Local Liverpool player Luis Diaz

One of Diaz’s strengths while still based at Anfield was his ability to play in all forward positions, with the flexible Colombian managing to score eight goals in 16 appearances as a centre-forward, apart from regularly completing his duties as a left winger.

The Reds have a lot of exciting young stars in their academy at the moment, especially fellow winger Ryo Ngomoha but he is not the focus this time around.

In fact, another teenager named Quirol Figueroa is now starting to make a strong impression on the youth crew.

Like Diaz, he has swapped between winger and striker duties for Liverpool’s Under-21s this season effortlessly, with his “instinctive” nature in front of goal – as described by Liverpool academy correspondent Louis Power – also seeing him score goals and provide plenty of assists.

While he has often found that most of his happiness on youth football comes from leading the line, scoring eight goals in 20 appearances in that role, Figueroa has never looked out of place on either flank, much like Diaz in his brilliance at Anfield. To put those numbers in perspective, that’s more goals than their stars have scored at the same level, having beaten the goalkeeper on just two occasions in nine Under-21 appearances.

He will also want to give the disappointing Isak a run for his money, with his lethal hat-trick against Everton Under-21s last month making him undoubtedly a more popular figure in youth circles in the red half of Merseyside, far from being an adaptable figure.

It will be difficult to get Figueroa into the first team any time soon, given that he is only 19 years old and is only used to the comforts that youth football has to offer.

But, if he continues as he is now, it will surely only be a matter of time before he is unleashed, having also been branded ‘ruthless’ by his Under-21 boss in Rob Page.

Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp has also praised Diaz as having an impressive ‘eye for goal’ during his playing days at Liverpool, with Slott and his team-mates now hoping Figueroa can be as lively in the first-team picture as the Colombian down the line.