Ryan Gravenberch brilliantly brushes aside Koeman’s ‘laziness’ criticism with ice-cold response | OneFootball

Ryan Gravenberch has casually allowed Ronald Koeman’s critical verdict of him in recent days to wash off him.

Earlier this week, the Netherlands coach accused the Liverpool midfielder of ‘laziness’ and lacking ‘concentration’ in the past, although the ex-Everton manager did praise the 22-year-old’s performance in the win over Manchester United last weekend.

Speaking to De Telegraaf, the Reds player was unflustered by the public comments from his national team boss, which appear to have generated an angry reaction in other quarters.

Gravenberch said: “It’s not nonsense; everyone has their own opinion. People say about me that I’m a bit nonchalant. That’s just in me. Now I have that nonchalance too, but people don’t really talk about it, because things are going well at Liverpool.”

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It would’ve been easy for the Liverpool midfielder to take offence to Koeman’s criticism and hit back at him in public, but instead the 22-year-old seems to have taken it in his stride and let his performances do the talking.

It can be a very dangerous game for a manager to publicly call out one of their players, but in this instance it doesn’t appear to have knocked a breeze out of the Reds maestro.

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Our number 38 made the Netherlands squad for Euro 2024 but didn’t play a single minute at the tournament, although the form he’s shown at club level at the start of the season surely warrants game-time in the Oranje’s UEFA Nations League clashes against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Germany over the coming week.

This time last year, Koeman savaged Gravenberch in public after the midfielder declined an international call-up in order to focus on his club career, having just signed for Liverpool after an abortive year at Bayern Munich.

The ex-Everton boss is no stranger to admonishing the Reds ace, who’ll hopefully deliver the kind of performances which’ll have his national team coach singing a different tune in a few days’ time. On recent evidence, he’s well capable of doing just that.

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