Luis Diaz scored a hat-trick as Liverpool defeated Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday night
Arne Slot was full of praise for Luis Diaz after he fired a second-half hat-trick to help Liverpool thrash Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 and maintain their 100% record in the Champions League this season.
The Colombian was given the task of leading the Reds’ forward line on Tuesday night as the Bundesliga champions, managed by Xabi Alonso, headed to Anfield in the fourth game of a new-look format.
Leverkusen’s five-at-the-back formation had initially proved troublesome for Liverpool until Diaz broke the deadlock with a dinked finish past Lukas Hradecky in the 61st minute.
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And after Cody Gakpo doubled the Reds’ lead with a header less than two minutes later, Diaz provided the gloss on a memorable European night as he scored his eighth and ninth goals of the campaign and became the first Liverpool player to score a Champions League hat-trick at Anfield since Philippe Coutinho in December 2017.
And post-match, the Liverpool head coach was asked about the decision to play Diaz in a new-look role in central attack.
“A few things. I only have four attackers available at the moment with the injuries to Diogo Jota and Federico Chiesa. And Darwin didn’t play that much in the beginning and then started to play a bit more,” said Slot.
“With this fixture list, it is almost impossible to play them all. So that – in combination with I think Jonathan Tah is a really good defender, one of the best defenders in Germany, and he likes to play a bit more against a target man – we chose to play Lucho more from the left or from the midfield and then maybe surprise him afterwards with runs in behind.
“And yeah, if you look at the first goal, that paid off. What a pass from Curtis Jones.”
Then asked about Diaz’s new-found prolificacy in front of goal this campaign, Slot added: “Not only the people in Colombia like Lucho, the fans of Liverpool love him a lot as well.
“I heard many times the fans singing his song. And the manager likes him as well. I don’t love him but I like him a lot! He’s played many, many games but I just said something about Darwin Nunez; in the Premier League and Champions League, you have to play so many games at the highest level and it’s not possible for every player to play every game.
“Especially in certain positions, if you are a centre-back, normally you don’t run as much as a left-winger, or a full-back, or a midfielder. And especially our wingers because if you look at the goals Lucho and Cody scored, but I also look at how hard they track back and how much they have to defend.
“I ask a lot of them, so that’s why we have to rotate them. But Lucho, for me, is a starter and I said this three days ago about Cody as well. For me, he is a starter also.”
