Liverpool’s Plan for Salah’s Successor: Yan Diomande
Liverpool’s Salah succession plan has taken on sharper focus – and a familiar tension – as Yan Diomande’s international coach made it clear that any transfer talk will have to wait, even while the winger’s name echoes around the World Cup and Europe’s elite circle.
Salah is going. That much is settled. After nine years, a mountain of goals and a legacy carved into Anfield folklore, Liverpool are preparing for life without their talisman on the right. The club believes they have found the ideal heir.
Inside Anfield, sporting director Richard Hughes is convinced Diomande is that player. The 19-year-old RB Leipzig winger has been on Liverpool’s radar for months, with early contact reported back in December. The admiration has only grown.
Leipzig dig in as price soars
The Bundesliga club are in no rush to cash in. Their stance is blunt: keep Diomande for at least another season, let his value rise, and avoid the feeling they sold a potential superstar too soon.
Any negotiations will start high. Figures around €100m (£87m, $116m) are being floated as an opening position, with talk that the final fee could push towards €120m (£104m, $140m). That is Salah-level money for a player barely out of his teens.
Liverpool, ambitious but not reckless, are already exploring ways to make the numbers work. One option being discussed by sources close to the situation is a swap involving Cody Gakpo heading to Leipzig as part of a cash-plus-player package. It would be a bold move, a reshaping of the forward line in one sweeping deal.
What Liverpool cannot control is the calendar – and right now, the World Cup is in charge.
World Cup spotlight, transfer pause
Diomande’s stock rose again on Sunday as Ivory Coast beat Ecuador 1-0. He tormented Arsenal defender Piero Hincapié throughout, driving at him repeatedly, completing four dribbles and playing with the kind of swagger that catches the eye of scouts and sporting directors alike.
On the touchline, his national coach Emerse Fae watched the performance and heard the noise around his young star grow.
“When we were in France, during the preparation, journalists told me he was about to sign with PSG,” Fae said after the Group E win. “Here, they tell me he’s about to sign with Liverpool!
“I don’t know, but for now, he will focus on the World Cup, and then afterwards, he can think about the rest of his career…”
Behind the scenes, Diomande is understood to be keen on a move to Anfield, with claims the teenager has already given his approval to the idea of joining Liverpool. On the pitch, his game is doing the rest of the talking.
Fae, who sees him every day in camp, did not hold back.
“Yan – what can I say? I can’t put it into words,” he said. “He’s very talented, but beyond the talent, he’s very young, and he’ll improve.
“He’s a kid who works hard, has a real team spirit, laughs with everyone, and he listens, listens to the technical staff whenever he’s given advice, and tries to do his best, as he’s told.
“It’s easy to work with someone like Yan, he’s so talented and has what is needed, plus he can give you the victory and was a real challenge for Hincapié, a Champions League finalist.”
For Liverpool, every dribble, every highlight reel run, cuts both ways: confirmation of the talent, and another nudge upwards on Leipzig’s valuation.
Liverpool cast a wider net
Diomande is not the only winger in Liverpool’s sights as they remodel their attack. The club is also tracking Bradley Barcola, with the PSG wide man now pushing to leave the French champions.
Reporter Graeme Bailey has confirmed that Barcola wants out of Paris and is emerging as a big-money target for both Liverpool and Arsenal. It underlines how aggressively Liverpool are approaching this summer’s market in wide areas. Salah’s exit is not a problem to be patched; it is a structural change to be confronted head-on.
For now, though, the Diomande saga sits in a holding pattern. The player is lighting up the World Cup, his coach is drawing a firm line under transfer distractions, Leipzig are braced for offers, and Liverpool are weighing up whether a blockbuster fee, perhaps softened by a Gakpo trade, is the price of their next era in attack.
Once Ivory Coast’s tournament ends, the real contest begins: can Liverpool turn admiration and early groundwork into the signing that defines their post-Salah future?
