Since arriving at Liverpool in 2014, Dejan Lovren has not always been universally appreciated by the fans – but he’s very rarely been linked away from the club.
In fact, this is the first time we can remember a genuine transfer rumour regarding the player’s future – although there probably were a few when he was really struggling under Brendan Rodgers.
According to the Mirror, Roma, Napoli and Inter are all interested in our 29-year-old Croatian, who hasn’t played since limping off in the FA Cup defeat to Wolves at the beginning of January.
In fact, his entire season has been decimated by injury and in total, Lovren has made just nine Premier League starts and only one in the Champions League.
In his place, Joel Matip has done superbly, and will rightly be regarded as Virgil van Dijk’s first-choice partner until the end of the season, barring a run of poor form.
But next term, potentially world-class Joe Gomez will surely return alongside the best in the business, van Dijk.
With Matip as backup, Lovren could find himself as fourth-choice for two positions, which considering he’s in his peak defensive years, is not ideal.
However, Liverpool’s central defenders, bar van Dijk, are horribly injury prone. All three of them miss multiple matches and cannot be relied upon for a 38 game campaign.
For that reason, we think selling one of Matip or Lovren without getting in a top notch replacement would be foolish.
We’d hold on to all of them. Unless Lovren or Matip demand an exit, which seems unlikely, there’s no reason to change our centre-back options.