Jurgen Klopp hopes Luis Diaz’s arrival will inspire Liverpool’s other forwards

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp expects the arrival of new signing Luis Diaz to provoke a response from his current front four.

The German has also warned that the club – and therefore players – cannot afford to stand still and must always be looking to progress.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino will all be 30 by the summer and the trio have contracts which expire 12 months later.

Due to his current form Salah’s ongoing negotiations have attracted the most attention but his fellow forwards also have a future to consider and the 25-year-old Diaz’s £37.5million arrival is the latest attempt to freshen up the forward line after Diogo Jota joined from Wolves in September 2020.

Asked how he expected his established stars to react to the Colombia international’s arrival, Klopp said: “How sports people react.

“First and foremost nothing happened apart from we brought a really good player in. Now we really have to work with Luis, and all the others as well.

“The reaction of the players is always that they have to perform at the highest level. That has always to be the case.

“Our players, even when we had injuries and only three available up front, pushed themselves to an extreme extent absolutely all the time and that is why we were pretty successful in the last few years.

“But we cannot hope that we get through this with three or four players. We need options and we need help.

This club is too big to rely on single persons, whether that's me or a player, and has to be ready for all different scenarios.- Jurgen Klopp on increasing competition in the squad

“All development includes fresh blood as well and that’s what we did with Diogo when he came here and now when we signed Luis it is exactly the same.

“Players might