Paper rumours this week suggest a bad time for Dejan Lovren. The press are reporting that a number of Lovren's Liverpool team mates have lost confidence and trust in the Croatian defender and are seeing him as a weak link in the team. This is leading to speculating that Lovren's time at Liverpool may be up sooner rather than later. This deal with Lovren is reminding me a lot of Robbie Keane's time at Liverpool in 2008. Keane arrived in summer 2008 for £19m. On paper Keane looked like a great signing with some of the Premier Leagues best goal scoring stats to his name, and he brought a great level of Premier League experience. But when Keane arrived he struggled with the pressure of being the £19m striker, and struggle to form any kind of partnership with our star striker and key goal scorer Fernando Torres. The expectation on Keane was to heavy for him to handle. Keane often found him self stuck awkwardly in the team, playing wide or filling in for an injured Torres as a loan striker. Neither role suited him and he soon became a regular on the bench. In January 2009 Rafa sold Keane back to his former club Spurs for £12m, just 6 months after he arrived at Liverpool. We made a financial loss of £7m and gained just 5 league goals in 19 league games (from an experienced striker who regularly hit around 20 per season). At lower clubs Keane was a star but at a bigger club it was a different story. Lovren has been different in the fact that he has almost entirely played in one position, LCB, which is commonly regarded as his best position. But like Keane I feel Lovren's signing was based to heavily on statics and a reputation passed through word of mouth. To me it looks like Lovren has collapsed under the pressure of being a £20m player and is struggling to live up to this heavy talk about a reputation that now just looks like Chinese whispers. He's failed a form a partnership with any of our other CB's and now just looks awkward in the team. As time goes by it just seems like things are getting worse and worse for Lovren and it has reached a point where I just cant see things getting better for him. Is it time to cut our losses and do a Keane to Lovren? How much could we realistically expect to receive in return? Could one of our CB's out on loan really do any worse if they were to be recalled? I believe they could actually do a bit better. I cant help but think the clock is ticking on Lovren's Liverpool career.
we could so easily have said the same with Hendo in his first season with us or lucas probably, glad we didn't. only players we should have cut our losses on in my opinion is Allen and Borini.
Another comparison we could make is Downing. Another £20m who could not live up to the pressure of being a £20m footballer, who is now playing well again at a smaller club after failing to perform for us. We could also count when Darren Bent move to and then left Spurs.
The difference with Henderson and Lucas is their age. They both arrived as youngsters with a vision towards them being for the future. They were inexperienced and a long way away from their peak ages. No one expected instant results. Lovren is 25 and has been around the block a few times. He was signed with the intention of him coming in straight away and being our new Jamie Carragher. The vocal leader who every one can always rely on. We paid big money for him to do a specific job immediately and he has instead shown us that he is not right for the job. I think Lovren's problems are more about character and mentality than skill. He is just not naturally suited to the role he was signed to play. Its not Lovren's fault, it was the fault of who ever insisted on signing him and paying that fee. Lovren has been tempted into a very tricky situation. Maybe the club need to admit they made a mistake, apologize to Lovren and, start again and do it properly this time.
you get analyzed more at the bigger clubs as media look for faults in everyone, smaller clubs the players only get highlighted when they do well, so most miss the ****e performances they put in each week, only your own fans who normally see it. its like watch motd for example and you would think they show all issues you see in a game, well talking points, but i have watched one of our games a while back now and then watched motd and didnt even get a mention.
I do hope Lovren was not signed based on MOTD analysis and his reputation in the edia for being 'a great leader at the back'. But unfortunately that looks like the case. It looked like the case for Keane to. That signing was Rick Parry's error and lost him his job.
He was good before he got injured with us, but even then he was always made to look better with the players around him. He's a 'hollywood defender', goes for the looks good on tele lunge while others clean up his mistakes. As a person, I believe he's invited failure by constantly talking himself up, thats not new to his time at Pool, just ask the Lyon fans.
Lovren is an all action defender, Skrtel is the same, the combination is not good. Lovren needs an older head alongside him, a communicator. Get the center back pairing right and a lot of our problems will also be solved. My thoughts are to sell Skrtel and get someone in to play with Lovren.
This is total bull He is 25 a right side player and frankly boys if this guy was at Southampton under Keenan the world would be falling over him Skertl is 30 and a headless chicken again this year after a big last year
I know you lot hate Mourinho but under him Lovren would be a good CB. It's all down to coaching. Rodgers has lots of good attributes but defensive coaching isn't one of them.
I totally agree with you Proper coaching and devising a system to actually suit the players at hand would be an idea However buying a total of 37 mil of lcbs doesn't make sense either so yes let's swap managers!
Lovren is another Skrtel. Strong and uncomplicated defender but not a leader. They work and are great defenders with the right partnership. I'm still hoping Sakho comes in and takes the leadership at the back and I think Lovren will be far better for it. He is a good defender who's just having an awful season where his problems snowball like his confidence.
Lovren's problem is that he was signed to be a leader. Rodgers even described him as a leader. But it turns out he is not a leader, so he's being forced to be some thing he is not. He has no confidence doing this and its ruining him. I'd love to see Sakho be a hit at Liverpool because he is 100% capable of it. He has been struggling learning English and he has had fitness struggles. But hopefully he is getting over these now. He proved whilst playing for France that he is a natural leader and a very talented footballer. I'd like to see Ilori and Wisdom given the chance to play with Sakho ahead of the start of next season. Ilori himself seems to have fitness issues ATM though whilst Wisdom is stuck playing RB. Both are very talented. Flanagan/Manquillo Wisdom Sakho Moreno Has the potential to be a solid, well paced and well balanced back 4. All players need more experience before they truly settle though.
Very sloppy CB before and during Mourinho's time. Poor positioning and clumsy tackle. Very good on the ball though. You made Mourinho sound like the CB miracle worker but David Luiz counters that argument. Luiz had has best form under Benitez.
£50m indeed. Just before he had that disaster display against Germany. The funny thing is, when ever he played as a DM in a 4231 he was pretty good. But the only anager who noticed and used him there was Benitez (the real defensive genius).
He rarely played him at CB, preferring Terry (who's been superb in Mourinho's 2nd spell) and Cahill. Luiz had some ok games as a DM when needed. He then sold him for £50 million quid. Job done! He may have his faults but defensive coaching certainly isn't one of them (quick scan of his teams records proves that) and he's a million miles in front of Rogers when it comes to that aspect of the game!!
