Croatia manager Ante Cacic is fuming with centre-back and Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren, the Echo’s timeline reports.
Croatia were taking on Hungary at the weekend, and Lovren began the game on the bench. When asked to warmup, he cut it short and went back to the bench without his manager’s instructions, and it’s gone down appallingly with his international boss.
“Do you think it is up to Lovren or any other player to decide how long will he warm up?” Cacic told Sportske Novosti.
“Or is it [the] coach’s decision?
“I will not tolerate such behaviour because no one is more important than the team. Lovren made [a] step backward, away from our squad.
“We didn’t talk after the match, we will see what is going to happen, but I will not tolerate such acts and he made [a] wrong move.”
The quotes suggests Lovren’s place in Croatia’s Euro 2016 squad is now in jeopardy, which seems a little harsh considering the game was a friendly and Cacic didn’t discuss the matter with Lovren behind closed doors before publicly humiliating him.
The defender’s been in excellent form for Liverpool recently and we really hope this issue doesn’t affect his club performances.
With Martin Skrtel out of form and only recently back from injury, Lovren and Mamadou Sakho are definitely Liverpool’s starting centre-backs right now.
They should line up against Spurs on Saturday, and barring any mishaps or injuries, against Borussia Dortmund on Thursday – the biggest game of Jurgen Klopp’s game to date.
It’ll be interesting to see how Klopp will deal with Lovren following this setback.