The first player bought by Jurgen Klopp for Liverpool finds himself back on the sidelines at the club he joined after leaving the Reds.
Marko Grujic was signed for a fee of £5million in January 2016, the first signing Liverpool made after Klopp took over from Brendan Rodgers. His time at the Reds was a bitter disappointment though, with the Serbian making just 16 appearances in four years.
After loans at Cardiff City and Hertha Berlin, he was sold to Porto for £10.5m in last summer's transfer window. His first permanent campaign in Portugal went well, with Grujic making 36 appearances in all competitions as Porto won the Primiera Liga.
"We were in an extremely strong group in what is the elite competition. We won third place, below Liverpool and At. Madrid and ahead of Milan. Then, in the Europa League, we eliminated Lazio and lost to Lyon," he said in May.
"Benfica invested a lot of money. We and they entered every championship as the main candidates for the throne, but Sporting surprised them. Benfica replaced their longtime coach, Jorge Jesus, and third place cannot satisfy them. His consolation was reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League."
But the current season has been little short of a disaster for the midfielder, who has struggled badly for game-time. He has started just three games in all competitions and in recent weeks has only seen action as a substitute, much like his time at Anfield.
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In fact, since the end of August, he has only been on the pitch for 24 minutes in the Portuguese top-flight. An injury suffered early in the campaign did stunt his progress, having started Porto's opening two games.
Since his time on the sidelines, Porto boss Sergio Conceicao has opted for a different look to his midfield, with Grujic a spare part. He has spent Porto's past two games as a substitute, with Conceicao appearing to hint that he would continue to trust his current starting line-up rather than call upon Grujic.
“These are the same players who lost 4-0 at Estadio do Dragao. This is not a revenge, this is our job, because I’m paid to train and the players are paid to train. We are all paid to train and win," he said after the win over Club Brugge.
“We still haven’t achieved anything but a victory today. The important thing for us is the qualification, as everyone knows, and we are on the right track. When we have qualified to the knockout stages, we will be very pleased to achieve one of the goals of the season.”
“We have fantastic individual performances when the team is strong. When the team is good in every moment, obviously the individuals stand out. The quality of great players is to always stay at a high level, without ups and downs.
"There might be situations of less inspiration, but the base has to be there. In this Champions League, I’ll say it again, there were moments and matches where we weren’t so good. Today we were, so congratulations to the players, congratulations to the whole group."
