The problem with him is that he thinks he's better than he is and always feels the need to explain away things.
Crystal Palace v Liverpool Match Thread
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Oh dear.
He's found another ingenious strategy: he claims Klopp keeps convincing him he's better than he is. So it's Klopp's fault.
He is drawn; drawn to go back, to the apartment block in Karlovac where the Lovrens lived; mum, dad, two boys, on £250 per month. He’ll climb stairs to the third floor and hope the tenants don’t mind. In his old flat, in the tiny bedroom that was his, does the table remain?
He sat at that table every night doing homework — a C student whose mum made him graft. Do better than me, she’d say. She worked a supermarket checkout. Dad painted houses.
Dejan reckons he was 12, 13. One evening he wrote on the table’s underside: “I am Dejan Lovren. I will succeed in my life as a football player.” “I believed it,” says Lovren, “and I wrote it, ‘I will be one of the best players in football. I will succeed,’” with the date. “I’m 100% that table is still there. I’ll go this summer to ask if I can go inside and see it.”
That boyhood mission statement felt far off in Lovren’s most recent game, where he lost aerial jousts with Romelu Lukaku leading to Manchester United’s goals in a 2-1 defeat. It also seemed distant in October at Wembley, when he was substituted 31 minutes into Liverpool’s 4-1 loss to Tottenham.
Critics highlight those games, but there has been more to Lovren’s season and over risotto at an Italian restaurant in Aigburth, near his south Liverpool home, he speaks frankly about his football and his remarkable life. A picture emerges, of a strong character and strong player who feels strong emotions. In moments, all that gets enveloped by clouds.
At Wembley, two more mistakes under high balls led to two goals. When his number went up he was “surprised. Walking off was s***. I’d never been in that situation. I was so close to kicking all the bottles over [at pitch-side]. But then I saw all the faces looking at me and said, ‘Nah, I’m still a gentleman.’
“Life has taught me there are worse things . . . but against Everton [after their controversial penalty earned a draw at Anfield] I took a bottle and smashed it against the wall. Same ref, similar decisions [in the United defeat]. Football should be fair…”
Jurgen Klopp manages him brilliantly. “Well, not when he took me out at Spurs. Then, I was fuming,” Lovren laughs. “But after, when we spoke. It took a couple of days then he invited me into his room. I wanted answers but he said positive things. He said, ‘If you just think about yourself like I think about you, you will be one of the best players in the world.’
“You know maybe, it’s sometimes just . . . ” Lovren pauses, “. . . just my self-confidence disappears in some moments. And he believes in me, you know? And I believe in him. Sometimes, I’m a person who thinks ‘Ah, I’m really good.’ But other times I think, ‘Ah, I did that. I’m not good enough.’ He says always be level, but it’s difficult. You have sometimes self-confidence, sometimes not; sometimes good moods, sometimes not.”
After United it was Klopp who wanted answers. They spoke about body language. He’s trying to change his: “I should be one of the examples on the pitch. Not [slumps]. Maybe players will look at me like the manager looks at me, if they see me positive on the pitch — like a second leader after Hendo [Jordan Henderson].”
The challenges he lost against Lukaku? “He’s a strong guy, physically one of the toughest, for his age unbelievable. Sometimes you get it right — and many games, I won against him — but sometimes you lose. Mistakes happen.”
There is a fundamental misunderstanding of Liverpool’s defending strategy that does not help Lovren. The errors against Spurs and United involved him stepping towards the ball positively. Three were high up the pitch. Klopp wants those gambles, those risky challenges — because gegenpressing involves stealing ball, surprising opponents in areas where Liverpool can counterattack.
Lovren is a front-foot defender, and Klopp needs one. He couldn’t have two calm, purring, Virgil van Dijks. Says Lovren: “Man United defenders: sitting, waiting. We have a different style of football. We need to apply high pressure and it’s a challenge for a defender.”
Pundits scoffed that he should have dropped off Lukaku. “They can say that, but they’re not hearing what the manager says. If he wants me high, I am high. This is what we do. It is a risk — but then see how many goals we score after winning the ball.”
An unpopular opinion: Lovren has had a good season. Spurs and United were his only defeats — Liverpool have lost two games in 32 with him and four in 12 without him. “Everyone makes mistakes, but I play one bad game in 18 and everyone says, ‘Look, look, look.’ Why? I don’t deserve that,” Lovren says. “People don’t see me in the ‘small’ games. They see 5-0 against Porto but nobody sees my part.”
Does it get him down? “No. It’s a challenge. A personality challenge. After a mistake, are you ready to move on?” At United he dusted himself off to play a big second half and “I did it straightaway after Spurs when I was in that record of 18 games unbeaten. Big players don’t need six or seven games; big players in the next game prove you wrong. But some people don’t care about that Dejan. They’re just searching for the next mistake.”
His life has been a personality challenge. Last year he made a moving documentary about it and one day he’ll write a book. The Lovrens are Bosnian Croats who fled to Munich during the Bosnian War. Dejan was three. Seven years later, denied German residency, the family left for Karlovac, a town in central Croatia — and for him that was the toughest time. Teased at school for his Bosnian accent, he remembers an older, bigger boy chasing him back to his apartment block and up the stairs — the bully gave up on the second floor. “I had a beautiful childhood but from my parents’ point of view, imagine having to say to your kids, ‘We need to run today.’ With no money, just two bags. But through all the difficult situations they never showed the pain. They always showed the love,” Lovren reflects.
Karlovac was an “ordeal” for several years. “Football took my feelings away. I would think about football. I knew I had something I could do with my life.”
He supports the charity Help Refugees, wearing their T-shirt; it says “Choose Love.” He wants compassion and help for those fleeing Syria and conflicts in Africa. “People don’t have a choice. If staying was a choice, 100% they’ll stay. People stayed in Bosnia and got killed. I don’t understand people who [resent refugees] going to Turkey, Croatia, France, coming to the UK. What else to do with them? They are also humans.”
Manchester City is the kind of Champions League draw Lovren wanted. “We expect a lot of ourselves. We feel we can reach out all the way to the final,” he says. “Any big team who likes to play . . . and we like to press . . . we can beat them. We don’t like defensive teams.”
Van Dijk is great to partner: “Virg? When you add quality to your team it is power. Jurgen made a good choice. Virg is still adapting but next season he will fly. I like our combination. He’s a great lad. He’s calm, but he’s not calm when I beat him in basketball. When it comes to basketball, he needs to learn.”
So Lovren is No 1 when players shoot hoops in the gym? “I am the champion,” he confirms. “Joel [Matip] should be good. He’s so tall. But he has not the right technique. You know who is worst? Joe Gomez. He takes the shot like a throw-in. I said, ‘Get out.’ I said, ‘You look like [Michael] Jordan but you are doing throw-ins.’”
Dejan Lovren: Joel Matip 'should be good' at basketball and Joe Gomez 'looks like Michael Jordan'
He's deffo a Bosnian Croat.
He's deffo a Bosnian Croat.
Lovren beats Virgil at basketball?!
Does he play in a wheelchair to give Lovren a better chance or something?
Does he play in a wheelchair to give Lovren a better chance or something?
Same
If that's true then I also misunderstood it. Imo part of his downfall has been overconfidently thundering into things without thinking and not coming out of it well, then repeating the process over and over.
It works against some teams and he looks great but other sides make him look like a total liability.
It sort of makes sense when Lovren talks about Klopp's rather distinct view of defending, with high-risk, aggressive defending, and how Lovren is following his instructions, and being the 'fire' to Virgil's 'ice'
However, it does also seem a rather convenient excuse for his occasional utterly fucking brain dead defending, and also relies on the reader not having a memory, because his VERY FIRST GAME for Liverpool, under Rodgers, was exactly the sort of harum-scarum, all over the place like a mad woman's piss display we have come to know and love.
So either he's a total bullshitter, and that's just how he always plays, or he is eerily prescient and was already implementing Klopp's tactics four years before he arrived as manager
And I'm still not sure he ever says 'just play like a brainless cunt and have a laugh, like'
Does a mad woman’s piss really spray all over the place?
How could a stick or toy car affect the trajectory of the mad woman’s piss though?
Good for Souness on the Mane pen, because he calls out the hypocrisy of refs. The ex-ref Gallacher moans 'it's minimal contact' on Mane - as if the pen decision is up to whether contact is about 'minimal' or 'maximum' contact, which is surely irrelevant, you don't give fouls about how much contact there is, the decisions, in reality, seem to focus on intent and contact, not the 'minimalness' of the foul - and the same hypocrisy is evident on the Karius pen. If Karius had put his head forwards rather than kept it back, would that have been a sending off and no pen? Is a foot up at a keeper not 'dangerous' unless a keeper fails to avoid it? No wonder there are no British refs a the World Cup - they're hopelessly unreliable.
Looked like a lot of players played within themselves out of fear of getting injured for the city game.
Agree with that, but FFF put some stats up the other day saying we hadn't won at 12.30 in decades or something, so you can't knock the result.
Klopp needs to get everyone up with a taser to the balls at like 4 in the morning.
Agreed but fuck it we won, Mane scored and looked a real threat. Salah scored and nobody got injured.
Klopp won't have to do a thing to get the lads up for Weds.
Lol
Klopp explained our struggles after an international break. The players that have been away have all trained and played with various intensity, and then you have maybe 1 day to get everyone in sync again.
As we could see yesterday that isnt easy, and it kinda looks like a pre season game at first.
I think the key in the Karius pen is that Zaha got to the ball first. He then drops his leg as the two come together. Definite pen.
With the Mane pen, Mane clearly dives. It's both contact and a dive. But, perversely, it's probably a penalty also as the player was impeded. Just not to the extent he made out.
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Not sure what to think about the Mane "pen". There is some contact but there is no rule against contact is there...? So soft contact where the player is not hindered by it should be ok....
Look at the free kick Spurs won yesterday. Under strong pressure in their own penalty area, one of them brings the ball out towards side-line, Fabregas 'touches' his arm and he just drops to his knees and the ref gives the foul. A softer foul you will never ever see but no one harped on about 'minimal contact'.
It was a definite pen but the foot was still high. In slo-mo, as with most things, it looks less dangerous, but anywhere else and most refs would penalise that.
You appear to have submitted a post from last season.
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