It’s a funny situation lived by Lazar Markovic at Sporting CP.
When the player arrived on a loan from Liverpool, with Jurgen Klopp deeming him surplus to requirements, the expectation was manager Jorge Jesus could bring back his old form, as both of them had their best days during their time at Benfica.
Months passed, and Jesus started changing Markovic’s position to see what could suit him best. The player kept failing to impress, and the expectations around him kept dropping until the time the manager started not counting on him anymore.
So as reported by Record today, the club would be already thinking of sending the player back to Liverpool.
Even though Jorge Jesus would still like to have him in the squad, president Bruno de Carvalho is managing the crisis by getting rid of dead weight and would be considering packing the player off back to Liverpool.
Problem is that the loan contract between Liverpool and Sporting says that Markovic must play a certain number of matches during the season. A number which he hasn’t reached so far.
It means that Sporting would have to pay Liverpool some kind of compensation for not using the player. And as the board are not willing to do that, there’s still the possibility of keeping him.
The decision hasn’t been made yet. Bruno De Carvalho seems to often believe rules which apply to other clubs don’t apply to Sporting, so Liverpool could be in for a rocky ride.
That Jorge Jesus would like to keep the Liverpool owned player for the rest of the season, but Sporting’s president could intervene, doesn’t say a great deal about the manager’s current standing at the Portuguese club.
