When Lazar Markovic was announced as Anderlecht’s latest loan from the Premier League, everyone was a bit surprised.
The Liverpool winger hadn’t exactly shown anything this season suggesting he deserved a chance elsewhere, featuring once on Jürgen Klopp’s bench in a 2-0 EFL Cup loss to Leicester.
Incredibly unfit when he arrived in Belgium, the whole affair screamed ‘panic transfer’, yet that doesn’t appear to be the case, if Sport/Foot are to be believed.
The weekly magazine did a bit of digging into how the transfer came about, and his agent informed them that ‘negotiations started two weeks before the transfer was announced’.
At the time, Markovic allegedly had three offers: one from a mid table Premier League side, one from a Bundesliga club and another from a ‘big club in Belgium’ that wasn’t Anderlecht.
However, those offers seemingly disappeared, which is when talks with the Jupiler Pro League reigning champions started up again.
Furthermore, Milos Malenovic, his representative, makes it clear his arrival had nothing to do with Aleksandar Mitrovic’s failed transfer.
It must be said this all goes against what was said in Belgium at the time of the move, when the signing was very much presented as a last minute gamble, and it’s easy to side with the original reports.
Playing just 20 minutes of football so far for Anderlecht, Markovic is slowly getting back to match fitness, just in time for the season’s final run in.
