It’s been a seesaw two years for Dejan Lovren at Liverpool since coming over from Southampton in the summer of 2014. Many times Lovren has played hero, scoring header goals at the death to get Liverpool to the Europa League Final while shutting down fierce opposition attacks. But then there’s the other side. When Lovren forgets how to play the game. Forgets how to mark strikers in the box. Takes down attackers with tackles costing him silly cautions.
But all the bad could have been thrown out the window Wednesday night as Liverpool played 2-time defending Europa League champion Sevilla for the Europa League title. And everything looked good early as the Merseyside club took a 1-0 lead into halftime.
And remember, the Europa League silverware is nice, but what both teams were really playing for was an automatic berth into next season’s Champions League group stage.
But immediately after halftime the wheels came off the Liverpool bus. Sevilla would score inside the first minute of the restart and Lovren would be embarrassed by a Vitolo ‘nutmeg’ which lead to Coke’s 64th minute game winner. Lovren would reach for the ball as he looked lost during the Sevilla attack and the Spanish side did not look back. Coke would add a late insurance goal to seal the match as Liverpool miss out on next year’s Champions League.
Now the question is: would this summer’s Croatia side be better or not with Lovren in the starting XI?
Manager Ante Čačić has already voiced his opinion. NO.
Lovren gets crossed up and ‘nutmeged’ to give Sevilla the lead (2:42)
Chivas USA are in 1st place, last I checked and made a good run in the US Open Cup too.
Enjoy the game. Should be a packed house.
^ ^
Should be a bottle of Chivas!
@CS EPL Fantasy,
Congrats, you will receive 2 tickets to a Chivas USA game of your choice.
@Poglavnik,
Came down to the final day. I chose Sanchez instead of Giroud and lost to Kvartuc. Luck ran out this time.
@lovro, good comment. Seems right
Congrats Tony! I finished in the top 50 this year for the first time – haha
Congrats on the pool!
Maybe Lakers-in-2017 doesn’t want to talk about it 😉
Where’s Kvartuc in all this?!
The problem with Lovren is that he wants and needs attention. Donald Trump like.
There’s no doubt he gives his all each game and wants it to be positive, but, instead of accepting that he might have a bad game once in awhile, he goes and gets the attention anyway – in a negative fashion.
There are some games that you are not going to win it for the team – accept it – don’t go out then and personally lose it. This is something he refuses to understand. It’s a lack of discipline.
For him, either way, it is attention. Similar to the saying about publicity – there’s no such thing as bad attention.
What a jip…!!! Ah well I rocked all your asses anyway!!! Yeah babbbyyyy!!!! Wooooooooooo!!! ( Rick Flair r.i.p.)
^^
You win two tickets to Chivas USA’s next home match.
I won the pool! No recognition for it! No prize wtf!!! What’s the point of having the pool? Lol
Not sad about Lovren, but he did okay against Sevilla.
He scored a goal that was disallowed because Sturrige was judged to interfere with the play from an offside position.
@Maminjo
Cacic was the cause, well said Maminjo!
If Cacic cut Lovren, where would the fallout have come from?
Euros, aren’t far away now.
I’m hoping some of the Turkey, Czech and Spanish defenders have bad games against us so we can score some goals!
Some one has to fuck up somwhere for goals to be scored.
@Brkic
Good comment Brkic.
@maminjo yeah there is no way Cacic was going to start him after that Izrael game.
I am thinking Vrsaljko will start at LB over Strinic, unless Strinic really impresses during camp.
@Ziva Not saying I want the 352, as we did get exploited several times against lowly Izrael, but 442 would suffice, then move to 352 if we look anemic or start losing. Just happy Cacic is experimenting.
Cacic purposely got Lovren to toss himself from the squad. He never trusted him in our backline, and I believe that Israel game was the only one he had Lovren start in (which wasn’t an impressive one for Dejan).
I think Cacic was never a fan, tried him out, but it just re-confirmed that there is no way he wants to start him. Didn’t want any fallout for cutting a Liverpool player, so he benched him and let Lovren self-destruct. This tv repairman is not as stupid as he looks.
So, this is the third time something similar to this has happened in Croatian sports this year.
We need to start a GoFundMe page to wipe out mental midget syndrome in Croatia.
http://sportske.jutarnji.hr/samo-u-hrvatskoj-pogreskom-im-oteli-snove–zaboravili-ih-prijaviti-na-kvalifikacije-za-rio-/1574163/
The thing is corluka is such a clever passer of the ball, he can have the ball at his feet yet see all the movement in midfield, he disguises the pass then releases it at the perfect moment allowing modric or rakitic to receive the ball and turn and we’re on the attack immediately….you need three at the back to facilitate that because they’re harder to close down than a back 4. The problem then becomes that you need the other centre backs to be athletes AND clever ones, corluka can step into midfield then, but then you need to have versatile wingbacks in which case you can’t really have perisic there because he’ll end up too deep and doing to much defending. So you gain here you lose there, I don’t think there is a perfect system for this set of players, the balance is not quite perfect through the squad. But they can work it out I’m sure. Croatian brains
I think if badelj plays it gives some protection. All these guys have excellent decision making in terms of building the game from the back, passing etc, against Israel the team shape was compact when defending in order to minimise the space around corluka, and it worked quite well….but it was only israel…… yes I would also worry about that a little bit against top strikers…
I see some advocating for a 3-man backline……Do you guys trust Corluka in the central role in a back 3. Lot of ground for him to cover and the dude aint the fastest guy out there.
I am massive jedvaj fanboy, but the football they play at leverkusen is just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous pressing game, nobody has any time on the ball for either side, jedvaj hasn’t had a chance to get a feel for the game he’s like a piston on the right hand side. I wouldn’t trust him as a centre back yet in the NT, I say that with sadness because for me he is just a super talented player
Bender………..remember, this is the kid who refused to play for the repka and valued his shoes more than the flag.
Subasic
Caleta-car, corluka, Vida
Srna, modric, badelj, perisic
Rakitic
Mandzukic, pjaca
🙂
@ Brkic
Fair points. I’m not cheering against him. Hope he gets his head on straight and gets to the point where he can lead our back line.
As you mentioned, we are only marginally better with him. My point was directed more towards the folks that thought our chances were wrecked now that he wasn’t selected.
Are Vida and Corluka ideal? No. But I’d rather take that pairing(s) than something with Lovren.
I don’t think it’ll happen, but would be nice to have Jedvaj paired with Corluka and Vida as that first defender off the bench (could play across the line – RB, CB, LB)
maybe he’s assuming bender will go first haha
^ ^
Aaaaaand how is this relevant to anything Croatian?..
Dikembe Mutombo is rejecting the idea of another NBA draft lottery conspiracy.
Mutombo congratulated the Philadelphia 76ers on winning the No. 1 pick with a tweet Tuesday that came about four hours before the lottery. But he tells The Associated Press it was a “mistake that happened” and that he had no knowledge that the 76ers would win.
“I want to let people know there was no conspiracy,” Mutombo said in a phone interview.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
Mutombo played for the 76ers during his Hall of Fame career and now works for the NBA as a global ambassador. On Tuesday afternoon, he received an email from the Sixers organization asking him if he would post a congratulatory message on Twitter if the 76ers won.
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Photo: Screengrab via Twitter
The email, obtained by AP, showed some sample tweets that could be used. He copied and pasted one onto his Twitter page — but then immediately sent it.
“It was like maybe 30 seconds, then I realized, ‘Whoa! What did I do here?’” he said. “But it was too late. It was out in the air.”
Mutombo quickly deleted the tweet, which included a picture of himself and Allen Iverson, his teammate when the 76ers went to the 2001 NBA Finals. He soon posted another tweet saying he was just excited and had gotten ahead of himself, but was still hoping for a Sixers victory.
The NBA has battled conspiracy accusations since the very first lottery, when the New York Knicks moved up to the No. 1 spot to draft Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing and there was suspicion that one of the envelopes was tampered with so the person selecting would know which one to grab.
The league has gone to great lengths to make the event, which is overseen by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, more transparent, even making a video of last year’s drawing to show how it couldn’t be rigged.
Mutombo, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year best known for his wagging his finger when he blocked a shot, rejects the idea of that the league would cheat.
“They need to stop that,” he said. “The NBA is like such a great organization, they don’t even go that way.”
Mutombo got plenty of messages kidding him about his error, and he was able to laugh about it, too.
“I think a lot of people understood the error that was made,” he said.
http://nypost.com/2016/05/18/dikembe-mutombo-tweet-stirs-nbas-latest-draft-conspiracy/
Brkic well said brate.
@Armada87 give me a chance to take the bait, would you?
The Liverpool game yesterday was a total team effort (or lack thereof). At ThisIsAnfield.com Lovren was rated a 6, but 10 of Lovren’s teammates (including subs) were rated 6 or worse. Only 2 were rated higher. Lovren almost scored at the end of the second half (an uninvolved teammate was called offsides) and there were 3 handballs in the Sevilla box (1 prob should have been called a penalty). If it was 2-0 at the half it could have been a different story.
Did he or Liverpool have a good game? No.
Is Lovren in good form? Yes.
Is Lovren our best central defender? In my opinion… Yes
Is he world class? No
Should he have been included for the Euros? No, since he issued the ultimatum he put Cacic in a corner.
Are we better off without him? No, but only marginally.
Should Liverpool players be banned from the national team? Only if we ban players from every team that was knocked out of Europa League prior to the final. Maybe we should just field an entire squad from the HNL…. What do you think @Rob I?
The sad fact is that all of our talent is not in defense. Even our brightest defenders are more known for their attacking prowess. I hope we can keep clean sheets, but I fear we’ll be in situations where we have to control the ball to protect the defense and we may be poor at playing with the lead.
I don’t quite understand why so many root against our own. I didn’t want Kovac coaching the NT, but I hope he matures as a coach and becomes great. I hope Lovren continues to improve and helps us in 2018. So yes… I’m a fanboy.
on an nba note, here is a story piece cnn had on dragan bender….as with most reporting, it’s filled with a lot of over the top hyberbole, but interesting an yways
http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/the-next-porzingis/
Was watching Izrael game on youtube. Loved the 352, but man did lovren have a bad game. He was bailed out by the post on a corner, Srna with an amazing goal line clearance, then by an izraeli player who missed a sitter after Lovren non chalantly whiffed his clearance. He really was a weak link in the 352, not to mention his bad passing.
On a more positive note everything Perisic touches causes a shit storm in the opposing teams defense! Still loving the two up top, really creates opportunies for our midfield to shine,even if it is a club team slumping Kalinic.
where are all the Dejo fanboys on here?
see 2 of the Sevilla goals? take note of where Lovren was for the Coke and Gameiro goals…. you guessed it, right in the middle of it.
and like clock work, when the chips are down and it matters the most, Lovren turns in a stinker of a game.
Anyone that plays for liverpool should never play for our national team. never
This is what ThisisAnfield.com have to stay about Lovren’s game yesterday:
Dejan Lovren – 6
After impressing in recent months, this wasn’t the best way to cap the season. Struggled with Gameiro and make very little positive impact.