Southampton have churned out loads of expertise which have gone on to the very prime of the sport, with Virgil van Dijk an apparent poster boy for a profitable transfer away.
Many gamers who characteristic at St Mary’s, nevertheless, have struggled after departing, none extra so than Dejan Lovren.
The Croatian centre-back was coming off the again of a wonderful season together with his aspect, who had completed simply two factors behind Liverpool as they secured a seventh-place end.
He featured 31 instances on the coronary heart of that defence however had already earned large reward from his supervisor on the time, Mauricio Pochettino.
The Argentine had signed him from Lyon and claimed:
“Once we had been following him and we had been about to signal him we knew of his high quality and we knew it could be very simple for him to adapt and set up himself inside the league,” he then continued:
“We already knew about his ability and his high quality.”
Though he had impressed, he was susceptible to errors which shone by following his £20m transfer to Liverpool.
Evidently the Saints binned him off simply in time to reap the rewards of his wonderful preliminary type upon coming to England, then watch him falter barely at Anfield.
A path trodden by many others, from the south coast to Merseyside appeared like it could be a pure improve for a Reds aspect in transition.
While he was not a whole flop, he did wrestle all through his profession a lot to the delight of the media, who usually highlighted explicit performances the place he had been deemed “ineffective” and a “defensive shambles”.
His profession has stuttered and the eventual arrival of the aforementioned Dutch colossus all however sealed his destiny at Liverpool.
He has since been enjoying his soccer for FC Zenit, solely 4 years after he proclaimed himself as “among the finest defenders on this planet”.
Ought to Southampton have offered Dejan Lovren?
Sure
No
The Croatian made this declare only a 12 months after a Liverpool fan had created a fifty-tweet thread detailing all his errors for the membership.
An announcement that drew ridicule, the 33-year-old was not a large disappointment after leaving Southampton however he actually by no means reached the domineering heights that noticed him earn his preliminary transfer away.
It marks one other instance of how the membership offered on the good time and obtained good cash for a participant they masqueraded as prime quality. In comparison with his earlier days in England to the place he’s now, he has flopped massively.
