Lazar Markovic: An upcoming talent the Premier League cannot ignore

Lazar Markovic

Lazar Markovic? can be Luis Suarez’s ideal replacement at Liverpool

While we ponder and concentrate on the FIFA World Cup in Brazil and analyse the fallout of the Luis Suarez saga it is near impossible not to speculate about the new English Premier League season or for that matter the new European season that begins in earnest in August. While the Messis, the Muellers, the Neymars and the Hazards keep up their great national team work in Brazil, let us talk about a player who is fast becoming one of Europe’s most sought after football players despite not participating in the world stage in Brazil.

Serbia’s Lazar Markovic could give Liverpool a viable way out from the regular ignominy that the Merseyside club has to suffer with the disgraced Luis Suarez. Speculations are rife that Brendan Rodgers might just have to offload his most prized asset in order to avoid a liability getting too much of a burden to handle in the near future.

The ideal replacement could be 20-year old Lazar Markovic who has the potential to light up Anfield and the Premier League as a whole. Benfica won’t part with their prized winger easily but a sum of around 20 million pounds could just be enough for Liverpool or other top European sides to do business with the Portuguese giants. If one player who can take success starved Serbia to the next level, most notably Euro 2016, and give the Balkan nation a household name similar to those of Nemanja Vidic or Dragan Stankovic or Sinisa Mihajlovic, is the former Partizan Belgrade academy product.

What Liverpool can achieve with Lazar Markovic

A winger who can also be deployed as a second striker on both sides or an attacking midfielder playing just behind the main striker, Markovic has tremendous pace and ability to maneuver opposing defenders. He is a constant threat to the opposition defence and can pick out a forward running team-mate at will with his defense splitting passes. The Serbian international has been on Brendan Rodgers’ radar for some time now and with the close season arrivals of Emre Can from Bayer Leverkusen, Rickie Lambert from Southampton and the potential new arrival of Adam Lallana the signing of Markovic could potentially give Liverpool a headway into next season’s Premier League title race.

Jose Mourinho is also known to be a keen follower of Markovic’s progress and Chelsea could have a say in the signing as the summer progresses but Liverpool would need a talent like Lazar Markovic to add variety to a side which had clearly been the best attacking Premier League side last season.

If Liverpool do seriously think of selling Suarez it will have a profound effect on how Brendan Rodgers approaches next season tactically and although Markovic does not have the international pedigree of the Uruguayan but the Serb’s pace and vision could bring the very best out of the Merseyside club’s attacking front. With Champions League football to look forward to next season Liverpool must have a big squad with lots of depth.

Lazar Markovic’s future

One main reason for the club’s showing last season is the absence of European football but the rigours of Champions League football would force Brendan Rodgers to nurture his squad and that is where last season’s European experience of Lazar Markovic with Benfica might be of great importance to the Anfield club.

The 5’ 9” Serbian international has an uncanny knack to accelerate incredibly and that is where defenders get caught out often. An ideal footballer to link the midfield play with attack given his versatility and pace. Capped twelve times for Serbia, the stoutly built Markovic could be the talk of next season and with Uefa launching the famed ‘week of football’ concept to kick off the European Championship qualifiers in September, the next two years could turn out to be crucial in both Lazar Markovic’s career and Serbian football as a whole. The likes of Markovic, Alexander Mitrovic, Alexander Kolarov have to be part of a new Serbian generation that is slowly lagging behind former Yugoslav republics and bitter neighbours Croatia and Bosnia.