Porto legend Eurico Gomes has expressed his dismay at the price Liverpool paid the Portuguese club to secure the services of Colombia international Luis Diaz.
The Reds confirmed the signing of the 25-year-old last week and the initial fee is believed to be somewhere in the region of £37m – potentially rising to £49m.
“It was not a good deal,” Gomes told the Telegraph (via 101 Great Goals).
“Porto don’t find themselves in a comfortable financial situation, but the truth is that Liverpool got Diaz for a bargain price.”
We may have secured the signing of the No. 23 for an impressive price, but reports are claiming that we also paid Porto a £6.6m upfront payment which resulted in them avoiding a three-year ban from European competition.
UEFA are believed to have set the Primeira Liga side a deadline of January 31 for them to have paid off all of their debt and the deal for Diaz ensured they could do exactly that.
It’s always frustrating when your team loses a player, especially someone with the amount of quality that the Colombian appears to have, but that’s not Liverpool’s fault.
It appears that Julian Ward, who negotiated the transfer instead of the outgoing Michael Edwards, has done a really good job.
We can’t wait to see the winger in a Red shirt – let’s hope he can continue the form he was showing in Portugal after 22 goal contributions in 28 appearances so far this term.