Rodgers Doesn’t Rate Ilori As Much As Lovren

Rodgers Doesn’t Rate Ilori As Much As Lovren

Liverpool let Tiago Ilori go to Aston Villa in a loan deal for this season. If he does well, Villa have the option to buy the 22-year-old. The deal has angered many Liverpool supporters, and the deal is hard to make sense of because if Ilori struggles then we’re stuck with an unwanted player next summer and if he does well, we will lose him to Villa.

Liverpool paid £7million for Ilori in the hope that he would be a player for the future but after being loaned to Bordeaux last season, expectations were high that he might push on for a first team berth in Liverpool’s defence.

But it looks like Brendan Rodgers has given up on Ilori and is hoping to eventually move him on to another Premier League club without giving him a chance at Anfield.

Supporters don’t see what goes on behind closed doors or on the training field but with Liverpool’s lack of quality central defenders it seems crazy to let Ilori go without giving him a chance, especially with the extra games in the Europa League Liverpool have to play this season.

Maybe Liverpool supporters don’t see what happens in training but they certainly see what happens where it matters, in games and many are wondering how Dejan Lovren has had so many chances in Liverpool’s defence when he has been hopeless more often than not, and Ilori has had no chance to prove his himself.

A couple of days after Lovren’s latest disaster against West Ham, Rodgers allows Ilori to leave without giving him a chance and supporters are angry at this decision by a manager that is supposedly renowned for giving youth a chance.

Liverpool only have Skrtel, Lovren, Sakho, Toure and Gomez as options to play in central defence and none are convincing as good enough defenders for the club, so it seems very strange why Ilori has departed.

We are left to trust Rodgers judgement on Ilori and believe that he is not as good as Lovren, but do we really believe him?