Liverpool 2-4 AC Milan: Arne Slot explains Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez absences from friendly defeat amid transfer speculation

Liverpool manager Arne Slot has confirmed that Luis Diaz was omitted from Saturday's 4-2 friendly loss to AC Milan due to speculation surrounding his future, but Darwin Nunez was simply injured.

The South American duo were notable absentees from the Reds' matchday squad for their fixture with the Rossoneri in Hong Kong, as Liverpool suffered their first loss of the pre-season period.

Both Diaz and Nunez are being heavily linked with moves away from the Premier League champions, who are understood to have received a new approach from Bayern Munich for the former's signature.

Meanwhile, as many as four clubs are supposedly showing an interest in signing Nunez, who could soon be usurped by both Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak at the tip of the Liverpool attack.

Nunez has nevertheless impressed in pre-season with four goals in two games against Preston North End and Stoke City - netting a hat-trick against the latter - and Slot denied that his absence was due to the expectation that he would complete a move away.

Nunez injured as Slot confirms Diaz absence down to transfer links

However, the Dutchman did admit that Diaz was left out as a result of the rumours, telling a press conference: "In Lucho’s situation it was, yeah. There’s a lot of rumours around him lately and I cannot go into that.

"Lucho is training really well and we’ve decided that he’s not playing at the moment in the games. I cannot comment much more about that."

While Nunez's future remains up in the air, Slot expects him to be involved when Liverpool face Yokohama F. Marinos on Wednesday, adding: "In Darwin’s situation he has trained also really well and played a few good games for us already this season. But he was injured so we didn’t take the risk.

"It was a little bit the same with Wata [Wataru Endo] – he trained with us for the whole week but we didn’t want to a risk with him as well. That’s part of pre-season; the boys need to go towards match fitness and that’s a thin balance, thin line sometimes.

"In this situation we thought it was smarter for Darwin and Wata to be out today but I assume they will be there with us when we are in Japan playing the next game."

Who impressed for Liverpool in Milan friendly defeat?

With Diaz and Nunez watching on from afar, and new signing Ekitike not deemed ready for action yet, the latter's fellow summer arrival Florian Wirtz was given the nod in a central role for Liverpool on Saturday.

The £116m man failed to register a goal or assist or even create a chance in the 45 minutes he was on the pitch, but he was nevertheless hailed for his inventive play in a not-so-familiar role.

Behind the Germany international, 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha continued his excellent start to the summer, supplying the assist for Dominik Szoboszlai's first-half equaliser and completing three of his four dribbles successfully.

In the second period, rampaging right wing-back Jeremie Frimpong proved his attacking prowess and was often too hot for the Milan defence to handle, completing two of his three dribble attempts and also drawing two fouls.

However, a depleted Reds defence were often caught out on the counter-attack by Milan following the loss of Joe Gomez, who has returned to England for treatment on an Achilles problem.