'Man United needed Liverpool's Diaz' - Fortune

Former South Africa midfielder Quinton Fortune has revealed how he wanted his former club Manchester United to sign Liverpool’s Luis Diaz before the Colombia international ultimately signed for the Anfield giants.

The Reds signed the wideman in January from Porto in a £40.50 million deal, and Fortune has stated how he wished the player should have been signed by the Red Devils instead.

The 25-year-old replaced Diogo Jota at half time of Liverpool's Champions League semi-final second leg against Villarreal on Tuesday, as the Reds bounced back from 2-0 down at half time to win 3-2 on the day and take the tie 5-2 on aggregate.

"As much as we don’t want to say it, Liverpool; every time they sign a player, you are thinking, ‘Wow, they look like they have done their homework’," Fortune said, as quoted by The Athletic.

"Take Luis Diaz. I had been watching him for the last few months and years, thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, this is the player United need to sign’.

"Then Liverpool sign him and you are just thinking, ‘Nooo! How are we missing these players? Come on! Help me out here’."

Ahead of Liverpool’s game against top-four-chasing Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, Jurgen Klopp praised the impact Diaz has had on the team.

"An unbelievable impact, clear," Klopp said in his pre-match presser on Friday. "There’s enough space in each squad in the world for a world-class player – that’s what Luis is, that's why we were so desperate to get him and that's why we were so happy that we could get him.

"It makes all the difference. If you go through our games in the Champions League when we played Porto, he was still there, so it's a really strange situation."

So far this season, Diaz has had a hand in five goals in 10 Premier League outings, while contributing a further three in the Champions League.

"Now he goes with us to the final, which is absolutely outstanding. You could see what it means to him. Yes, involving an outstanding player is good for each squad and was good for us, definitely – not only because we had the African Cup when the boys were not here, but because of that as well.

"Thank God we made that decision because it helped everywhere. It’s so much more up to him than it was to other players, maybe because he communicates with everybody without really speaking the language."

As they have already lifted the Carabao Cup, Diaz and his teammates are chasing an unprecedented season’s quadruple.

They saw off Villarreal to get a Champions League final ticket and remain in the hunt for both the Premier League title and the FA Cup.