Chelsea star Mateo Kovacic has thrown some major shade at Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren.
Lovren and Kovacic have been called up for Croatia’s national squad, and the Blues man has said that Liverpool have no chance of winning the league because of Lovren’s presence in the squad!
Both sides have made unbeaten starts to the Premier League as they chase Manchester City, who sit proudly at the top of the tree.
And now the Daily Mail has reported that Kovacic, who started his career alongside the Reds defender with Dinamo Zagreb, has run his mouth a little bit.
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“Liverpool will not be England champion. Why? Well because they have Dejan Lovren,” the tabloid reproted that he said.
However, the two appear to be close and so that comment should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. Both players featured in the Champions League final – and the Chelsea man was snapped comforting his national colleague after the game had ended in Real Madrid’s favour.
Fast forward six months and both are competing in a much longer and arguably more difficult race. Normally, going 12 games without a loss would put you at the top of the table, but not with City’s petro-finance ruling the waves.
Pep Guardiola’s has got them playing extremely well, but they’re only human and Liverpool need to be ready to capitalise when they slip up. After getting through a tough run of league fixtures, the Reds should be able to ease through the gears as Christmas approaches.
Whether or not Lovren will be a part of that remains to be seen. Manager Jurgen Klopp has used the former Southampton man sparingly and clearly favores Joe Gomez and Virgil van Dijk has his central pairing.
But at some point rotation will happen and that’s when the Croatian needs to be ready to step up. He’s not an awful defender, but he still has his moments and Klopp can’t really afford that during a tight race.