A clearly emotional Luis Diaz was in tears after being taken off the field with a knee injury during Saturday’s Premier League match against Arsenal.

The 26-year-old Colombian winger, who missed the most of last season due to knee surgery, had to be worried after only an hour of action.

Diaz was spotted clutching his left knee following a ‘painful’ incident and was quickly replaced by Harvey Elliott.

The injury must have brought back painful memories of an injury that kept him out for much of the 2022/23 season, and he appeared sad as he sat on the bench next to Liverpool colleague Curtis Jones.

Diaz has been going through a difficult time. His mother and father were kidnapped by armed assailants on motorcycles while traveling from their house in Barrancas in October.

Cilenis Marulanda, his mother, was rescued when the Colombian attorney general’s office gathered a team of investigators to search for the couple.

The player’s father, Luis Manuel Diaz, was liberated after a gunfight between the kidnappers and Colombian police after an agonizing week of uncertainty.

According to local media in the La Guajira region, Diaz’s father was liberated after a police rescue effort that resulted in the deaths of two of the four kidnappers.

Diaz would later equalize in stoppage time against Luton Town on his emotional comeback to the Liverpool first team.

Since that game against Luton, the former FC Porto winger has struggled to make an impression.

In fact, former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher describes Diaz as “a shadow of himself” as he continues to struggle with form.

“Diaz just looks a shadow of himself since those knee injuries he had last season,” Carragher stated on The Gary Neville Podcast following Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal.

“Obviously, he’s had family problems this season but I really feel that Diaz, especially on that left side, has got to have a really big second half of the season or I’m sure Liverpool will be going into the market in the summer.”

When asked if Diaz was injured, the German said, “I hope not.” He was in discomfort, it was knee on knee, and we wanted to change twice before Lucho fell.

“And actually, we were going to wait to see if Lucho needed to come off, but then we decided to change all three because now we don’t have to wait to see how Lucho is, and that’s what we did.”

“Lucho told me he was in ‘little pain,’ and the physios were unconcerned, but you never know, and we play in three days, and you never know how quick the turnaround is, so we’ll see.” “I’m not sure.”