Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has showered praise on Liverpool forward Luis Diaz.
Diaz scored a sensational goal to bring The Reds level against Crystal Palace last night. And as per his post on Twitter, it’s clear that Ferdinand absolutely loves the Liverpool star.
“What a player Diaz is… attitude, desire, personality bang on!” wrote the United legend.
The Colombian came up with the game’s outstanding moment on Monday night. Unfortunately his excellence couldn’t spark Liverpool into completing their comeback against Palace and they had to settle for a 1-1 draw.
Diaz sends a reminder of his quality
After an incredible start to his Liverpool career, Diaz had a pretty quiet pre-season. He also failed to really test Fulham on the Premier League’s opening weekend.
As a result, maybe some supporters were starting to get a little twitchy about his lack of output. The 25-year-old was bought for almost £38m to replace Sadio Mane after all.
While Diaz is able to match Mane’s workrate and pressing qualities, he has so far failed to truly replicate his scoring ability. Jurgen Klopp has backed him to score plenty this season, but we need to start seeing it more regularly.
That’s why, as well as in the context of the game, it was such a relief to see him score at The Kop end last night.
And what a goal it was, too. Weaving into the Palace box, Diaz beat five players in white before launching an unstoppable drive into the far corner of Vincente Guaita’s goal.
Coming just four minutes after Darwin Nunez’s red card, it gave Liverpool an instant shot in the arm and belief that they could still win the game.
Ultimately, Diaz’s goal was as good as it got for The Reds. Although they huffed and puffed, they never really got close to beating Guaita again.
Now that Nunez is set to miss the next three games, more of the scoring onus will fall on Diaz. He’ll struggle to score a better goal than the one he got last night. But hopefully it can mark the start of a good goal scoring season for the former Porto man.
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