Liverpool blow as PSG make ‘contact’ with ‘irreproachable’ star as ‘priority’ to replace Mbappe

Will Ford
Luis Diaz PSG Liverpool
Liverpool star Luis Diaz is PSG's 'priority' to replace Kylian Mbappe.

Paris Saint-Germain have made ‘irreproachable’ Liverpool star Luis Diaz their top ‘priority’ to replace Kylian Mbappe this summer.

Mbappe has agreed to join Real Madrid at the end of the season and PSG are searching for a replacement who fits their new ‘collective’ ethos.

Contact made with Diaz

That’s according to Footmercato, who claim the Qatari staff at PSG view Diaz as the perfect player to take the Frenchman’s place at the Parc des Princes.

Despite a raft of talented attacking options including Ousmane Dembele, Randal Kolo Muani, Goncalo Ramos, Bradley Barcola and Lee Kang-in, PSG believe ‘a strong link must be recruited for the left corridor of the attack’.

It’s claimed ‘contact is already established with Diaz’s agent, Raul Pais Da Costa’, with the Ligue 1 giants benefiting from an ‘excellent relationship’ between him and the club’s former sporting director Antero Henrique, who ‘remains involved with the Qatari leaders’.

The pair ‘know each other very well and appreciate each other’ having previously worked together at Porto.

‘Checks a maximum of boxes’

The report claims Diaz ‘checks a maximimum of boxes’ for the Qatari chiefs, though Football Advisor Luis Campos – who has been given the responsibility of reshaping PSG into a team fit to challenge for European honours – ‘favours younger players, with greater room for improvement’.

Diaz does though fit with the the other main new ethos of the club, to sign ‘fewer stars, more collective’, with the 27-year-old ‘considered a player with an irreproachable state of mind, who also knows how to defend’.

According to recent reports, Barcelona are also keen on Diaz, and president Joan Laporta is said to have met with the winger’s agent to discuss a potential deal.

But according to transfer insider Fabrizio Romano, a Barcelona move isn’t on the cards owing to the astonomical fee Liverpool would be asking for, thought to be around £100m.

“Staying with Liverpool for a moment, I want to reassure fans that I’m not hearing anything about Luis Diaz and Barcelona, despite some stories about his agent meeting with Barca,” he told Caught Offside.

“Diaz’s full focus is on Liverpool and also I don’t think it’s possible for Barcelona to go and pay the kind of crazy fee that would be required for Diaz.”