Liverpool Would Quite like Someone to Take Lazar Markovic off Their Hands

Lazar Markovic is still, somehow, a Liverpool player, and he probably will be until the end of the current season when his contract runs out and the player—who will then be 25 years old—is forced to either sign on with another club or change career paths.

But if there’s anybody out there who would like to sign the once-promising Serbian winger six months early, Liverpool would be happy to talk and would likely be willing to send him over for free or something like it assuming Markovic, too, was amenable.

That’s the story in The Liverpool Echo today, who say the club would really, really like to offload him if they could this month. Which, if we’re being honest, isn’t really news so much as it’s the most blindingly obvious thing ever, pretty much.

The problem will be getting another club to go through the hassle of a deal after Anderlecht agreed one over the summer only for Markovic to block it going through as he preferred to stay at Anfield on his £50k per week contract than move to Belgium.

Supposedly, there has been some mild interest from the Chinese Super League, but as yet nothing firm has come out of that. And given Markovic has blocked other permanent moves in the past, that might be as big a stumbling block as finding a buyer.

One can’t fault the player too much, though, if he just wants his payday. Fans and clubs too often demand loyalty from players when things are going well but then are all too eager to toss a player who isn’t performing on the rubbish heap.

If there’s a problem here, it’s not with Markovic asking the club to uphold their end of the deal he signed with them, it’s with the recruitment process that led to the club paying £20M to sign him and then £50k a week for five years to keep him around.