Lovren's not loving Liverpool

Nah, the graph above that is all I need.

 

article on BBC this morning states that Lovren has made the most defensive errors of any player in the premier League, whilst Saints have made................

err none!

 

Hee hee. DellBoy - that article (Metro version) is posted a couple of posts earlier, which is what people are talking about.

 

The subject of Lovren's moving clubs is quite interesting. I have no sympathy with him moving to Liverpool and find it amusing that it isn't working out how he intended. However, I do visit Lyon every year as I regularly attend a music festival in a nearby city. I'd have to say that Lyon is my favourite city. Whilst it is large, it does have a provincial feel to it and, if you want culture, it has it in the bucket loads with a famous opera house, an open air festival held in a Roman theatre, numerous museums (including a Roman museum where the exhibits are of international significance) and a well known Festival of Light in November. no doubt Lovren's wife would have loved the shopping district of Presqu'ile and the restaurants are fantastic if you appreciate food. As far as the football is concerned, Lyon were, until the emergence of PSG, the most successful football club in France and, in the mid 2000's, were touted as the best run football club in the world due to their ability to acquire young, foreign talent which was developed and moved on for a substantial profit. They were especially good at doing this with Brazilians. Lyon's stadium is a 1950's concrete building , the Stade Gerland and is located in the suburbs. This will be replaced by a state-of-the-art Grand Stadium next season - the billboards were full of publicity for this on the metro this summer.

My point is that Lovren made a good choice coming to Saints as it enhanced his reputation. However, the Lyon fans were gutted to lose him after a similar short stay and I've no doubt that they would have felt the same as we do prior to Lovren joining Saints. They would have questioned why he would have wanted to have left one of the top three teams in France albeit one that hasn't won the French league for a number of years now. I find the failure of Liverpool as a whole to move on from last season more entertaining than Lovren's poor performances.

 

Were they really? Now I don't know, but a couple of posters on here were saying at the time we signed him, that Lyon fans were giving him dogs abuse. One of you is incorrect. Is your statement based on a couple of people you know, or a large contingent of Lyon fans like a supporters club.

Not digging, genuinely asking as I had been lead to believe the complete opposite.

 

This is why our black box is so important! You can't just sign players because they look good. You need to know everything about that player so they fit perfectly with everyone else. We must have know that Lovren was a good match for fonte and was proved right.

 

Based on conversations I had with people in the OL shop last year and this year. I wasn't aware that he had abuse from Lyon fans but I suppose the people I talked to would have been partisan as they are effectively employed by the club. It was stressed that he was a very good player and the comment was that "we would enjoy having him in our team." My French isn't the best but there was no doubt that his abilities were highly regarded by the people I spoke to.

 

No, he was virtually hounded out of Lyon by the fans - not quite an Osvaldo/Roma situation, but he was widely distrusted and his stock had fallen massively before he came to us. Pretty much what's happening at Liverpool for him now. At least he'll recognise the feeling....

 

I can only comment on what I was told.

 

No that's fair enough Ian. I'm just going back on what the Lyon fans and forums were saying when he went, which was along the lines of "good bye and good riddance".

 

I thought it was common knowledge that Lovren was picked-on by the Lyon crowd for making key errors in their games. Not that I care to remember anymore, but I'm fairly sure there were even newspaper articles and interviews about and including Lovren where he told of how he was badly viewed in France.

He also said he was happy to be at Southampton, so it could all have been a pack of lies.

 

I think that they have quite a constant turnover of players. They were recruiting a lot from Brazil and seemed adapt at making foreign players feel at home in the city by sorting out accommodation and schools, etc - the kind of stuff that often gets overlooked by English clubs.

I have bought the club magazine on a couple of occasions but it is difficult to appreciate the articles as you need to be a supporter for them to make much sense. It's also fair to say that interviews with footballers are just as uninspiring in French as in English. That said, there appear to be a number of people on this board who read "l'Equipe " which I would concur has a good angle on not only the France game but also this side of the Channel. Never watched Lyon play as I tend to be in the city in July (tried to visit the ground this summer but got soaked in a torrential rainstorm) but did see a Div 2 match back in March which was amazingly poor and akin to English fourth tier football.

 

I fly to Lyon when I go to the office and I do keep meaning to arrange it so I can watch a game before heading up to the office.

 

Here's an article about Lovren which harks back to his time with Lyon. It's approximately as I remember Lovren articles and interviews revealing it at the time when he signed for Saints:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2253895-dejan-lovren-reliving-lyon-nightmare-at-liverpool

Note: DTLW gets in there too via some Twitter comments.

 

Poor old Dejan, wonder if he's had his hub caps pinched a few times?
Certainly sounds like the wheels on his particular bus are beginning to fall off.
Gutted.

 

Should have stayed on the Koeman Express.

Oh well, live and learn.

 

Not even in Croatia's squad tonight?

 

Jamie Carragher's thoughts:

http://www.offthepost.info/blog/201...campaign=Feed: offthepost/TLAa (Off The Post)

 

I think Carragher is trying to make excuses.
Saints also play with attacking full backs, so Lovren should be used to Moreno pushing up.

 

yeah it's not the fullbacks attacking, it's the midfielders not covering for them at liverpool.

he's full of it.

(it's also the not very good full backs)