Liverpool fended off competition from Bayern Munich in the transfer window to complete the summer signing of Florian Wirtz, while the German club plucked Luis Diaz from Anfield.
Florian Wirtz is in top form for Liverpool (Image: Getty Images)
Bayern Munich’s sporting director Max Eberl has rubbished suggestions he was happy Florian Wirths rejected the chance to join the club. The former Bayer Leverkusen player opted to join Liverpool ahead of Bayern in the summer transfer window.
As an alternative, the German club moved to sign Liverpool’s Luis Diaz instead. He has achieved good results in the few months since joining the club. Bayern paid the Reds a transfer fee of £65 million.
Like Bayern, Liverpool also decided to forego competition from Man City to complete the deal for Wirtz. The move cost the club a transfer fee of £100m, increasing the transfer fee to £116m.
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The German struggled in his early appearances in the Premier League, but is now starting to show his quality as he continues to adapt to English football. Despite not contributing a goal in 12 Premier League appearances, Wirtz has scored three goals and provided two assists in his last nine league appearances for Liverpool.
Diaz hasn’t really established himself in Germany. The Colombian continued his form with three goals and two assists in Bayern’s first three Bundesliga games.
He has scored 14 goals and provided 11 assists in 25 games so far this season. When asked by German media outlet BILD if it was true that he was happy with Wirtz moving to Liverpool, given that the club were able to sign Diaz, Eberle refuted the claim.
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“To be honest, that’s not true, because if Florian Wirths had chosen to sign with Bayern, we would have been very happy too,” he said.
“He didn’t do that and chose the Premier League instead. But we are very happy that we made another very good decision to sign Lucho.”
“It would have been impossible for the two of us to be together. Like I said, we’re not exactly…printing money either.”
Luis Diaz has impressed at Bayern since joining (Image: Getty Images)
Wirtz has improved throughout the season and hopes to make an impact in the second half of the season.
Liverpool return to action in the Champions League on Wednesday when they play away to French side Marseille.
They then return to Premier League action on Saturday when they travel to the south coast to take on AFC Bournemouth.
Arne Slott’s side have drawn their last two Premier League games and will be looking to get back to winning ways.
