Liverpool ready blockbuster move for £75m Diomande upgrade

Remarkably, this is Liverpool’s third season in the past six years that you might call ‘topsy-turvy’.

The Anfield side embrace both the peaks and the valleys of the great game, winning two Premier League titles and the Champions League, among other honours, since Jurgen Klopp changed the course of the club’s history when appointed a decade ago.

Arne Slot earned his flowers when guiding Liverpool to the Premier League title in their first year without Klopp in the dugout, surpassing just about everyone’s expectations.

But the Dutch coach has been a pale shadow of last year’s self for the lion’s share of the campaign, with the Reds fifth in the table. Much hinges on forthcoming knockout ties against Manchester City in the FA Cup and Paris Saint-Germain over two legs in the Champions League quarter-finals.

While there has been a clamour for Slot to receive his P45, the briefings suggest FSG maintain their backing of the head coach, with summer transfer plans tailored to his system.

Liverpool plan Mohamed Salah succession

The summer transfer window won’t be as busy as last year’s record-breaking spending spree, but Mohamed Salah’s announcement this week has underlined the need for a new top winger.

The Egyptian King will leave the club on a free transfer, having tumbled from his inimitable standards since almost single-handedly charging last year’s title triumph.

Replacing this legend is an impossible and unenviable task, but it’s one that Slot and Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes need to take on and emerge with a new right winger who can play an important role for a team chasing titles.

Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise and PSG prospect Desire Doue have emerged as top contenders, but both wingers are deemed untouchable by their outfits. RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande, 19, is a more realistic target, but FSG have been dissuaded by the Ivorian’s £87m price tag.

As per TEAMtalk, Liverpool have found a controversial alternative in Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye, who is also wanted by Manchester United and valued at £75m, with the Reds said to be ready to launch a move for the Toffees’ talisman.

Obviously, this isn’t going to be an easy one to pull off, but Liverpool’s interest is genuine and Ndiaye has his eye on higher European ground after two impressive years at Goodison Park.

Why Liverpool want to sign Iliman Nidaye

You’d have to trace right back to 2002 to find the last time Liverpool and Everton engaged in a direct first-team transfer: Abel Xavier joined the Reds for around £750,000 after three years as a Toffee, but his time at Anfield was nothing to write home about.

Ndiaye would arrive with a different weight of expectation. The 26-year-old has scored 17 goals and supplied three assists across 64 matches for Everton, topping their scoring charts last season.

Owner of frightening speed and tricksy dribbling skills, he’s exactly what Slot’s side have been missing. In fact, one notable Premier League analyst has even remarked that Ndiaye is “Mane all over again”, and not just because of shared citizenship.

Ndiaye is a devastating and direct winger, combative against the ball and relentless in driving it into the danger area. He can score and he can assist.

Diomande has the world at his feet, but Liverpool simply cannot spend a nine-digit figure on a player who is so early in their career. Florian Wirtz, for example, is proof that the Premier League is a hard division to adapt to, and Ndiaye has been firing on all cylinders in England’s top flight.

Diomande joined Leipzig from Spanish side Leganes last summer, and there’s no question that he’s now riding the crest of a wave. However, the teenager has a lot of work still to complete, and whether he’s ready to take the baton from Liverpool in the Premier League is another question entirely.

Salah’s exit is more than just poignant: it’s the end of an era, the door closing on the journey of a man who bestowed so much joy upon the Anfield outfit.

While Mane left several years ago, he too was an unstoppable force, signed from a divisional rival in Southampton for £35m.

Could Ndiaye be the next version? He’s certainly not Salah, but then, who is? Instead, Ndiaye carries more of a likeness to his compatriot Mane, and given that he is settled as a sharp attacker in the Premier League, he could be the perfect upgrade on Salah and an alternative to Diomande, whose youth and inexperience suggest he might undergo an initial period of probation in Slot’s squad.