Arne Slot knows exactly what Liverpool are missing. Pace. The kind that stretches defences, that turns a counter-attack into a certain goal. And right now, the most electric example of it in Europe might be a 19-year-old at RB Leipzig who clocked 36.3 km/h in January — fast enough to rank inside the Premier League's top ten this season, and he's never even played there.
Yan Diomande is the player Liverpool are watching. The Reds have scouted the winger during a breakout Bundesliga campaign that has gone from promising to genuinely exceptional. Twelve goals and eight assists in 31 league games. A hat-trick against Eintracht Frankfurt in December that made him the youngest player in 60 years of Bundesliga history to score three in a single match. Six months ago he was at Leganes in the Spanish second tier, valued at €1.5m. Transfermarkt now has him at €75m — the biggest valuation jump of any player across European football this season.
Why This Move Makes Sense for Liverpool
The context matters. Mohamed Salah leaves at the end of next month after 257 goals — only Roger Hunt and Ian Rush have scored more for Liverpool in 134 years of the club's existence. There is no direct replacement for that. Slot admitted as much: Liverpool aren't looking for another Salah, they're rethinking the role entirely.
"We try to sign the best possible available player who we can afford," Slot said. He also flagged that Alexander Isak's ability to finish from right-sided crosses — not just through cutting in on his left — could reshape how Liverpool use that flank. Diomande fits that mould. He's quick, he's clinical, and he's already carrying a Leipzig attack that lost Benjamin Sesko, Xavi Simons, and Luis Openda in the same summer.
Liverpool know the Leipzig corridor well. The Naby Keita deal in 2017 was unconventional — an agreement to buy the following year — and since then the clubs have completed transfers for Ibrahima Konate and Dominik Szoboszlai. There's an established relationship. That matters when fees are heading north of €100m.
The Obstacles Are Real
Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff has already gone public with his view: "If I were managing director of sport, I wouldn't sell this young player. No matter what price is called." He's an adviser rather than a decision-maker at Leipzig specifically, but that's not a throwaway quote. It's a signal.
Diomande's move to Roc Nation for representation suggests his camp are at least preparing to field offers this summer. Whether Leipzig are prepared to listen is a different matter entirely — and at fees above £86m for a player with one senior Bundesliga season to his name, this is not a low-risk punt for Liverpool's recruitment team either. Those odds shorten, though, if Diomande keeps this form into the final weeks of the campaign.
One more factor in the background: Jurgen Klopp, now Red Bull's global head of soccer, knows Liverpool inside out and knows Diomande's environment better than almost anyone. If this deal gets serious, Klopp would be perfectly placed to have a quiet word in the teenager's ear about what Anfield offers. That kind of soft power is hard to quantify but impossible to ignore.
- Diomande: 12 goals, 8 assists in 31 Bundesliga games in 2024-25
- Top speed of 36.3 km/h — Premier League top-10 pace
- Youngest player in 60 years to score a Bundesliga hat-trick
- Transfermarkt value rose from €1.5m to €75m in under 12 months
- Expected fee: upwards of €100m (£86.4m)
Mintzlaff says don't sell. Roc Nation says listen to offers. Liverpool say they want pace. Something has to give.
