Liverpool left Luis Diaz out of their pre-season friendly against AC Milan amid uncertainty about his future as Bayern Munich continue their bid to sign the winger.
Head coach Arne Slot decided it was best not to pick Diaz after a summer of interest in him and with the 28-year-old seemingly open to a move away from Anfield.
Bayern have been in persistent dialogue with Liverpool over the Colombian winger, even though the Premier League champions have maintained the former Porto player is not for sale.
They made an initial approach, which Liverpool rebuffed, and then followed up with a £58.5m offer, which was rejected.
But Bayern were in talks with Liverpool again last week and Slot did not pick Diaz for the 4-2 defeat to AC Milan.
Slot said: “He’s training really well with us but we’ve decided, for now, not to play him yet. I’m used to talking to most of my players on a regular basis. Lucho is training really well and we’ve decided he’s not playing at the moment. I cannot comment much more about that.”
Barcelona had also made an initial inquiry for Diaz before bringing in Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford on loan instead.
There has also been interest from the Saudi Pro-League in Diaz, who Liverpool believe is worth more than €100m.
However, Slot said Darwin Nunez was absent from the AC Milan game because of a minor injury, not due to the possibility he may leave.
He added: “In Darwin’s situation, he’s trained also really well and played a few good games for us, but he was injured so we didn’t want to take a risk with him as well.”
Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo scored Liverpool’s goals against AC Milan while new signing Florian Wirtz also played.
