Arne Slot needs pace. Liverpool have spent much of this season looking laboured in transition, and the man who masked that problem for eight years — Mohamed Salah — is weeks away from leaving on a free. So when a 19-year-old winger clocks 36.3 km/h in January and bags a hat-trick in December to become the youngest player in 60 years to score three Bundesliga goals in one game, you can understand why the Anfield scouts were watching.
Yan Diomande is that player. The RB Leipzig winger has gone from Leganes reserve to Bundesliga breakout in the space of one season, and Liverpool are firmly in the picture as his representatives at Roc Nation look to open the market to interested clubs this summer.
What Diomande actually brings
The numbers are striking. Twelve goals and eight assists in 31 Bundesliga appearances. A top speed of 36.3 km/h that would rank inside the Premier League's top 10 this season. A counter-attacking clip against Augsburg where he put 3.5 metres between himself and the defence — effortlessly — before finding Antonio Nusa for the assist. This is not a project signing. He is already doing it.
His emergence has carried Leipzig through a brutal summer that saw Benjamin Sesko, Xavi Simons and Luis Openda (now on loan at Juventus) all leave. That Diomande absorbed that responsibility at 19 says something about his temperament, not just his ability.
Transfermarkt tell the full story of the rise: valued at €1.5m last June while still at Leganes, now sitting at €75m with figures of over €100m being discussed in transfer corridors. That's not hype — that's a market recalibrating in real time.
The Klopp angle and the Leipzig obstacle
Liverpool's relationship with Leipzig runs deep. Naby Keita, Ibrahima Konate, Dominik Szoboszlai — the pipeline has been well-used. There's an institutional familiarity there that matters when negotiations get serious.
There is also Jurgen Klopp, now Red Bull's global head of soccer, who would be uniquely placed to sell a young Frenchman on the idea of Merseyside. Whether that constitutes an advantage or a conflict of interest is an interesting question, but his involvement in any Diomande conversation would carry weight.
The obstacle is Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff, who was blunt on the subject: "If I were managing director of sport, I wouldn't sell this young player. No matter what price is called." His role means he advises rather than decides, but that kind of public stance shapes the negotiation before it starts.
Slot, meanwhile, has been open about what he's looking for — not a like-for-like Salah replacement (he's already accepted that's impossible given only Roger Hunt and Ian Rush have scored more for the club in 134 years), but the best available player who fits the system and the budget. A left-footer on the right, in the mould Salah perfected, is the template. Diomande fits it. Whether Liverpool can actually get him out of Leipzig this summer is a different matter entirely.
