He certainly has. No one is denying that. But to write him off is premature. He's shown time and time again the ability to split defences with great passes or hit great diagonals to the wings. He hasn't suddenly lost that ability...he's just lost a bit of form. (Also hard to demonstrate your ability on the ball with an overall team possession rate of 20 - 30 every game.

Bottom line for me:

Luka Milivojevic is a decent player.
His form has dropped this season. We don't know why.
But we've seen enough previously to know what he can offer and it's worth seeing if a different manager and a fresh season can get it out of him.

And when Jairo wasn’t in the team? I believe Jairo has started 19 games to Luka’s 31. So not necessarily Jairo’s fault but as you have made it quite clear you don’t think Jairo should be anywhere near the squad, I suppose it is as good an excuse as any

Edited by Spiderman (31 May 2021 7.28am)

Could the ex managers rigid positional tactics not be a reason for lukas dip in form?

Maybe not a bag of sand but yes he has had to look after his less experienced team mate in the heat of battle . Roys two in the middle ,often up against 3 hasnt helped either nor I would suggest has the effects of the covid .

All things put together (along with the stress of family issues ,whatever they are ) and its no wonder we have not seen the best Luka on show .

Personally I'd put Milivojevic in the same category as the likes of Benteke and Townsend:

It's easy, and often fair, to slate them for poor performance standards.

They have shown that they can be good players in this league.

There seems to be a correlation between effort and contract length which is at best unfortunate.

A new manager might breath new life into them, or just bin them off.

Replacing them with a player as good is not as easy as we might like.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (31 May 2021 11.52am)

Agree. The defensive mids under a Roy regime are on a hiding to nothing.