Arne Slot CONFIRMS Luis Diaz's absence from Liverpool's pre-season defeat by AC Milan was linked to his future - with Bayern Munich in talks over big-money move

Luis Diaz was left out of Liverpool's squad for their pre-season defeat to AC Milan because the forward is in talks over a big-money move to Bayern Munich.

The Premier League champions, who lost 4-2 in Hong Kong, are braced for a second bid for Diaz after turning down an initial offer of just shy of £58.5m – while the Colombian is believed to want an exit.

And he was banished from Liverpool's 22-man squad on Saturday due to this, with Arne Slot saying they have decided not to play him while speculation continues.

Asked if the absence was linked to his future, Slot said: 'In Lucho's situation it was, yeah. There are a lot of rumours around it lately and I cannot go into that. But he is training really well with us and we have decided, for now, not to play him yet.

'Does he want to leave? I am not the person to ask.'

Darwin Nunez, who also has an uncertain future, joined his South American team-mate in missing the defeat but Slot said that was down to a minor injury. Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister also sat out with fitness issues though both are expected to be fit for the next game.

But defender Joe Gomez has flown home to England with a minor Achilles injury which leaves Liverpool with just two fit centre backs with a clamour for them to dip further into their pockets despite spending £295million already this summer.

Slot added: 'In terms of depth, Ryan (Gravenberch) showed today that he can play that position. He did it last season as well. But although we all know that we favour him as a centre-back.

'Wata (Endo) can also play centre-back. Joe Gomez only has a minor injury. He's been good for us last season as well. We have enough options left but it's true that Jarell Quansah left and we haven't replaced him yet.'

Asked on transfers in general, Slot said: 'I said I was really happy with the squad I had which we showed by not bringing in players last season and we won the league.

'You can see everywhere around us, in the Premier League and in Europe, these teams try to strengthen. If we do the same as we did last year then we probably won't be able to win it again so we have to improve the players still here, while bringing in new energy and new weapons.

'The new players have shown that in the time we've trained together and the games we've played.

'We'll wait to see how Hugo (Ekitike) does that. Really pleased with what we did up until now but also really pleased we kept our players.'

Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo were on target for the Reds with Florian Wirtz and 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha the big positives to come out of the defeat. Liverpool now fly to Tokyo for the second leg of their pre-season tour of Asia.