WHAT a season 2013-14 was. A rollercoaster of near enough every emotion you can muster, smacking you in the face, in the ear, up the nose, again and again and again. Liverpool’s attacking prowess was largely credited for the relentless excitement of watching them play, but there was no ignoring the fact that the Reds’ games were also compelling because their defence was, for lack of a higher brow adjective, shite.
With so many of the goals conceded by Brendan Rodgers’ team last season coming as a result of individual errors, the logical conclusion was that the backline was without leadership. Jamie Carragher retired at the end of the 2012-13 season and was replaced by Kolo Toure, who wasn’t bad but wasn’t consistent enough to play every week and Liverpool still shipped goals left, right and centre.
Liverpool entered the pre-season knowing that if they could bring in a proper leader, someone who could make the backline his own and do what Vincent Kompany does for City, what John Terry does for Chelsea, what Jonny Evans… no okay. Very early on in the window, Rodgers (and/or the transfer committee) decided Dejan Lovren was that man.
However, since making his £20m move to Merseyside, the imposing centre-back has been anything but. A season that has been littered with mistakes, some so farcical that they have caused him injuries, is showing no signs of improvement and has left many Liverpool fans wondering just what on earth they have bought.
Lovren has made more individual errors than any other defender in the Premier League this season with five, and only Marseille’s Benjamin Mendy has made as many if you measure against the top five European leagues.
After a very promising home debut in the friendly thwacking of Borussia Dortmund, Lovren has struggled badly since the football became competitive. But just what have Liverpool bought for their several million pennies, and why?
Lovren was born on 5 July 1989 in Zenica, Yugoslavia, and like many families at the time, his had to flee the war and seek refuge in Munich. He descended from Croatian parents, and spent most of his childhood living in Germany, before moving to Croatia. He signed for Dinamo Zagreb at the age of 15 and made his first team debut at just 17. Lovren would go on to play regularly at centre back alongside his hero (and yours) Igor Biscan. In 2009, he was given the chance to sign for Chelsea, but in spite of Biscan’s advice to move to England, he turned it down in order to keep getting playing time.
After becoming a regular for the most part of his six-year stay in Zagreb, Lovren made the move to Lyon in a £7m deal, where he was initially used as a utility player, often playing full-back. It was a strange move by the club as manager Claude Puel didn’t seem to rate the youngster, playing the likes of Cris, Jean Alain Boumsong (remember him?), Mathieu Bodmer and even midfielder Jeremy Toulalan ahead of him at the back. Lovren spent most of his first six months on the Lyon bench, and the French media were sharpening the knives, questioning why the club had paid so much for a 20-year old who the manager didn’t rate.
Puel was soon out the door though, replaced by Remi Garde, and Lovren was playing more and enjoying his football in his preferred position at centre-back. However, he was collecting red cards like they had pictures of naked women on them. An incredible seven dismissals during his three and a half seasons in France earned him somewhat of a reputation, more for being clumsy and poor in positioning than anything else.
His form seemed to work in clusters, with a few solid games being followed by a few weak ones, then a few suspended ones, but his name was still high on the list of many when it came to the summer transfer dealings of 2013. He had been linked with several top clubs including Barcelona, Dortmund, even Liverpool. In fact there were huge rumours of an Anfield move after he started following the club on Twitter and spent an entire evening retweeting Liverpool fans. It may have just been a social media come-and-get-me plea however, as it was Southampton who eventually made the £8.5m move to bring him to the Premier League. Eyebrows were raised by both his admirers and his detractors.
Lovren was a revelation at St Mary’s, partnering Jose Fonte in the tightest defence in the Premier League and dominating strikers with the greatest of ease. A winning goal at Anfield earned him a special place in the hearts of Saints fans, and Mauricio Pochettino’s men conceded just three goals in their opening nine league games, which had included trips to Liverpool and Manchester United.
It wasn’t just fans who were praising Lovren, just look what hard-to-please pair Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville said about him on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football after Southampton’s 1-1 draw at Old Trafford:
Lovren took to the Premier League seamlessly, managed to fit into a hard-working system and lead what frankly appeared to be a previously average backline and turned them into a near impenetrable forcefield.
As the season wore on, Lovren’s form inevitably evened out, as did Southampton’s, but it had been a very solid first campaign in England. Certainly more so than many in France felt he was capable of, and his impressive play in a high-pressing team had not gone unnoticed in L4.
He made his feelings clear to the Southampton fans when he publicly declared his desire to play for Liverpool, telling Croatian website Sportske Novosti:
“It was unbelievable that a few days ago I had an offer of 20 million pounds. It was in the morning and by the afternoon the club had said I was not for sale. Frankly, my head is already at Liverpool.”
Sure enough, Lovren was soon a Liverpool player, following in the slipstream of Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana.
He wasn’t a Mats Hummels or a Diego Godin, the calibre of defenders Liverpool fans were largely clamouring for, but everyone was in relative agreement that he was at least a good choice and that he would no doubt improve a very shaky and disorganised Reds defence.
As mentioned, in his debut at Anfield against Dortmund he had looked like an absolute sensation. The non-competitive nature of the game aside, he was showing the intentions as well as the ability, being confident on the ball, aggressive in the tackle, coming out from the back, playing through balls to the forward players and even scoring a header from a corner.
However, since then it has been all downhill. Mistake after mistake, looking shaky on the ball, bumping into his teammates, being caught out of position, and not being in any way a danger from corners, unless he’s defending them. He was fantastic at Southampton, a team who play a very similar style to Liverpool, so why on earth has he been not just worse, but significantly worse this season?
One of the key reasons could well be the lack of protection. The ‘does Steven Gerrard do enough as a defensive midfielder’ talk has been done to death, but the fact is that Lovren had both Victor Wanyama and Morgan Schneiderlin ahead of him last season. Never mind having one player who could provide more cover than Gerrard does, he had two. Unfortunately for Lovren, the re-introduction of Lucas to the team has coincided with the Croat being dropped for Toure.
Another reason could simply be mental. He was bought in as a leader, Rodgers said as much more than once in public. There have been several occasions this season where he has visibly been trying to force the issue to perhaps come across as trying to take control, when in fact he’s often relinquishing it with great haste, such as in his two collisions with Mamadou Sakho against Tottenham and West Ham. Maybe if he just calms down, forgets that he’s expected to be a leader and just plays his natural game, everything will fall into place. If you have to force it, as he has been doing, then you’re not really a leader at all.
One statistic that perhaps pardons him slightly is the fact that he and Martin Skrtel have been under more pressure than many defences this season, with the pair averaging more than 10.5 clearances per 90 minutes in the Premier League (Skrtel averages 11.62). Compare that to John Terry (5.33), Marcos Rojo (6.35), Per Mertesacker (4.5) and Vincent Kompany (4.5) and you start to see why more mistakes are being made (stats courtesy of Squawka.com). They are having to deal with around twice as many balls into the box as their competitors. However, that does not excuse the sheer number of errors that have resulted.
Lovren was of course very highly rated at St Mary’s last season, and who knows him better (in England at least) than Southampton fans? I asked lifelong Saint Tim Marshall (@timjmarshall) for his thoughts on the enigmatic Croat.
What was your opinion of Lovren’s season at Southampton?
He got off to a flying start at Saints with that goal against Liverpool and just looked like a fantastic player in general, strong in the tackle and in the air, commanded his area well and played with confidence and style. However, his second half of the season was not quite up to the impossibly high standards he set in the first. He still scored a great karate kick goal against Sunderland though and the slight dip in form was attributable to the usual rigours of adjusting to the long, physical season in the Premier League.
Were you surprised to get £20m for him?
I was surprised, but less so than other deals, such as the amount we received for Luke Shaw. We heard all about how the art of defending had been abandoned during the World Cup and so for a top quality centre-back in the most expensive transfer market in the world I guess that was the going rate. I have to admit, like many fans at the time, I was concerned that we were then going to be in big trouble as Yoshida and Hooiveld were not good enough to step up to the plate. Thankfully we now have Gardos and Alderweireld.
Have you been shocked by how poorly he’s started his LFC career?
I am pretty shocked, yes. What I think it shows are two things; firstly how brilliant the Saints board and general team turned out to be in playing the ‘Moneyball’ game (for anyone who hasn’t read the book or seen the film I can’t recommend it enough). Secondly, it also shows just how dependent on being partnered with Jose Fonte Lovren was and how Fonte is perhaps the better of the two as he has been flawless this season so far, taking on the captaincy and leading the meanest defence in the league by some distance.
Is there anything he’s doing wrong this season that he was also doing last year?
Last season the Saints defence all seemed to know their jobs and positions very well and were rarely caught out in the kind of catastrophic way we have already seen from Lovren. Towards the latter part of the season he did start to fail to track back a bit more and also became a bit more undisciplined. I don’t know if there is an issue with fitness but he also seems to have lost pace, which is pretty unusual.
Do you think he can turn it around?
The cliche says that good players do not become bad ones overnight and I have feeling a lot of this is down to confidence. He made a bit of a tit of himself (to Saints fans) saying his head was already in Liverpool and people were blocking his dreams so he rather set himself up to fail. As much as I love Saints, they are not as big as club as Liverpool and so the pressure to perform simply is never going to be as great. I imagine that after his first bad game it became a cumulative thing and it might be difficult to recover some form. So in short if the team start to turn things around collectively and keep a few clean sheets, he might get some confidence back and remind you why you bought him in the first place.
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It must of course be said that Lovren is far from the only summer recruit to walk through the doors at Melwood and disappoint, but at this moment he is looking a million miles away from being a £20m defender, and Rodgers badly needs him to be.
Hopefully it won’t be long until we start to see this Dejan Lovren at Anfield. Then the fans on the Kop will finally have something to crow at.
Lovren needs to be taken out of the limelight and allowed to regain his confidence and form before being put back in. Perhaps a game against Bournemouth who are flying quite high at the min. I actually thought Lovren was our best defender against Basel the other night but that’s not really saying much at the min. I do believe there’s a good centreback in there somewhere but I’m sceptical whether Rodgers can get it out.
I honestly believe Sakho could be that dominant centre half if given a run of games but for one reason or another Rodgers won’t trust him. Seems like he’s been “Borinied”! Sakho keeps Koscielny and Mangala out of the French defence, he’s quick, strong, excellent passer, dominant in the air and likes a tackle although sometimes a little rash. What have we got to lose by playing him?! Can we actually get any worse in defence?!
It’s crazy when you look down the spine of our team about the lack of dominant players.
Mignolet?? Inspires mayhem around him and likely to be replaced soon.
Lovren/Skrtel?? Both nearly as bad as one another. Sakho should be given a chance to see if he can fill that gap.
Gerrard/Henderson/Allen?? Gerrard was once dominant but now his games are being managed and the other 2 could hardly be described as dominant.
Sturridge/Balo/Lambo/Borini?? Only Sturridge can be dominant up front but the guy is injury prone. The other 3 shouldn’t be at the club if we are serious about challenging for top honours.
How are we in this position after the money spent these last few years?!
I know I’m a Lucas fanboy but I honestly believe that if he had been made vice Captain and was given that responsibility I think you would have a really strong dominant player in the middle of the park!!
Honestly I think the reason a player like Lovren is struggling is because Liverpool is almost an impossible club to play for. The fans expect way too much and turn on players so quickly that you’re not allowed to even have a bad half of football before the knives come out. When he was at Lyon or Southampton he was allowed to struggle a bit without the fans destroying his confidence. It’s just my opinion but I think the supporters just need to relax and let the guy play because he’s obviously proven he can be a very good CB in this league.
I go to the match and the supporters haven’t turned on anybody, Lovren included. There’s lots of debate where I sit, but ‘turning on’ – no chance. People who sit and hammer on key boards might have ‘turned on’ players, but the supporters haven’t! We are agreed that Lovren is a liability and to have paid £20m for him is ridiculous, but he is allowed to play without any mass protest.
I never if I can help it slag off Liverpool player’s and especially not in public so this is against my instincts.
However having never really seen him before he came I had an open mind but what on earth does he do well?
Not strong in the air gets bullied average on the ball not lightening quick error after error I don’t get what was seen in him.
I have never been so baffled by a Liverpool centre half sinse Torben Piecknik.
I hope he proves everyone wrong especially me but I don’t see how he turns this round.
I could care less whether he was born in Croatia or Katmandu, he’s a yard dog and we were ripped off big time.
[You just know that anyone ‘mentored’ by Igor Biscan probably wears his IQ on his back].
Even in the relative stress free zone of the French Ligue 1, Lovren was considered a liability.
The guffaws could be heard in Lyon for months after Saints were ripped off for 8 million [and they are still laughing their gobs off in Paris for our generosity over Sakho]. L’pool paying 20 million for
this carthorse after just one year in the PL highlights the total incompetency of our ‘transfer committee’.
23 signings! Apart from Sturridge anybody else spring to mind?
No.
Coutino was not Rodgers signing, I think he was spotted under Dalglish. We have been the worst identifiers of talent you could imagine. We’ve even burned Spurs by inducing them to gazump us a few times. I think ALL of the people we have signed have been Rodgers picks, even though he doesn’t want to admit it. His ego is such that he would not countenance being overridden, I don’t think.
My uncle is a Saints S.T holder and he said at the time that A) we had signed the wrong one and B) massively overpaid
Strangely I was on a flight from Doha to the UK a couple of weeks ago and struggling in the last 2hrs or so to watch anything in particular when I found a review of the Brazil World Cup. They should each game from each group and in the highlights the goals that Croatia gave away. I kept an eye out for Lovren and something that I hadnt noticed 6 months ago, jumped out at me (as much as they can on that tiny screen) – he was all over the place positionally and marking wise for the goals. I turned off the review and put on the Office box set instead!
Some players find a home and should never leave it. Lovren is probably one, and Rickie Lbett probably another. I don’t know why a club with Agger, Skrtel, Coates, Sakho, Toure, Kelly, Ilori, Wisdom and God knows who in the club needed to buy him. Leadership need not spring from CB ( I thought Teina was as effective as Carra) but you surely don’t fork out 20m simply on the basis of being able to gee up colleagues. Anyway, he was not the best such player avaiable by a long shot. Don’t ask me who, though, all I know is he didn’t stand out for me. His problems now, though, are far more attributable to limited spatial ability than confidence. He seems to me to have very little more defensive awareness than Glen Johnson, who I have always thought should be an attacking MF and who put enormous pressure on players like Lucas who had/have to cover for him.
Very informative piece David. What seems clear is that he’s not someone who has been outstanding throughout his career or even improved gradually from being a good youngster. He appears to have gotten on through periods of being very good in between the mediocre or just plain bad. Which begs the question what the hell were our scouts doing when they rated him so highly? £20m highly!
He’ll improve from this bottom of the barrell position no doubt, and it’s a fair point about the defensive cover in front – Stevie as a DMF would put better centre halves than him under pressure. Maybe a spell behind Lucas will tell us more. It might happen soon enough if we lose Kolo to African cup duty.
No Igor, no 2005. Don’t knock the Biscan!
All Saints fans will tell you the same thing: Jose Fonte was the leader: Rodgers and/or the committee should have known this. This looks like a very poorly researched signing, let’s hope he can turn it around.
Kolo and Sakho are leaders, not Lovren (at least in his current form) or Skrtl. I’d like to see them given a run in the side when everyone’s fit.
Really good article and gives a much clearer picture of who we bought. The only downside to the article is it’s slightly disturbing.
Just heard Neil’s dulcet tones on R5L.
Sell-out!
Another double-mistake resulting in a goal… Frustrating.
Brave man posting this before the utd game.
He must have hit rock bottom now. Surely Lovrens form has to level out now and he cant start to improve
I’m loath to slag anyone off until they have had a season to settle in as history is littered with players that come good but his form has been so poor you do wonder if the damage is done,
I thought him and Joe Allen (who I have constantly stood up for) were a shambles defensively today,
Gutted………….again.
Brendan Rodgers sanctioned deals for £50m worth of Southampton players yet many of us fans said it was a mistake to spend so much on players not accustomed to the every-week pressure of a huge club.
Rodgers has showed a small club manager mentality and far too many of his own choices in the market – Lovren, Lallana, Borini, Allen – are mid-table level players.
The odds are in the long term Rodgers will prove to be a mid-table manager.
Think he’ll rise that far? He shows no aptitude for football management whatsoever. His selections against Manchester United suggest a man looking for the sack. And Lovren’s ‘clearance’ to gift them their third goal would have embarrassed a 7-year-old.
I actually think Loveren has shown signs of improvement of late, and I don’t think he was anywhere near our worst performer today.
First goal is mostly Coutinho’s fault letting Rooney run off him, but Lallana should be behind Allen to provide double coverage on Valencia out wide. Instead, he’s standing upfield from him giving Valencia a clear run if he manages to win his 1-on-1 with Allen. It’s basic defensive stuff: one stands up the winger, the other floats behind to pick up anything that gets past. You don’t really have double-coverage if your two defenders are standing either side of the winger.
Second goal is purely Moreno…again. Carragher is probably right that the line is too deep, but that isn’t why they score. I played left-back all my career, and if an opposition player scores at the far post after creeping around the back of me (especially when I have nothing else to cover centrally) then I know I am carrying the can for that one. The offside thing is symptomatic of our luck right now, but I reckon Mata scores even without Van Persie’s touch.
Third goal is a breakaway that begins with a Utd 3 on 2. Loveren should clear better, but that’s nothing like as egregious an error as Coutinho’s and Moreno’s.
Even acknowledging the defensive mistakes, it’s not the defence that cost us this game. It’s a lot easier to defend when you are scoring goals. Defending leads invariably means you are tighter, getting more screening from your midfield. When you’re chasing games you are more stretched and the defence is more exposed. I’m not claiming we have a great defence, but they are better than they are being allowed to show due to our profligacy (as in this game) or lack of creativity (as in others).
Put it this way: once we start scoring, getting leads and eventually winning games, everyone will notice an improvement in how the defence are playing. It’s not coincidence. No one part of the team operates in isolation from the others.
I realize the lads are in the analysis game and won’t put out a Podcast consisting of: “We didn’t take our chances. The End” – but on this occasion they really could. You can analyse the arse out of this all you want, but there really isn’t any other lesson you can take from this game except that you need to score half of your 1-on-1s if you want to win games at this level.
Let’s look at Lovren and the rest of the defence.
Lovren has the most defensive mistakes that lead to goals in the league second only to Mignolet with Skrtel and Moreno not too far behind. This top 10 normally consists of a lot of keepers, naturally, but we nearly have our whole defence in there.
Lovren and Moreno were first choice acquisitions, not someone we hadda make do with. Thing is I believe there’s decent defenders in there I just don’t think Rodgers has any idea how to drill a team to make them defensively sound AND able to attack profiently.
Another major problem I have is the way he discards perfectly good players. What do Sakho or Borini have to do in order to get a game?!?! I mean seriously!?
I can only guess that Sakho walked into the canteen one morning and took a piss in Brendan’s bowl of cornflakes. Why would you keep a France international who offers a threat at set-pieces out of the team?
It us distressing that we are having this sort of debate so close to the January window, epecially as we bought quite freely a couple if months zags.
Right. It is freely acknowledged that our defensive work has tightened since the return of Lucas and Toure.
It is also freely acknowledged that we have poor attacking choices.
It is generally agreed that Manchester United have a quite formidable attacking potential.
It is generally agreed that Manchester United have a quitr poor defence.
So…
We drop Lucas and Toure, and
we go into the game with no attacking players.
Can sonebody tell me wtf.????
The guy’s a shit David Luiz (and David Luiz is shit), charges around the pitch like a headless chicken, panic stations all the time and doing the daftest shit
Anyone who paid 20 million for him and thinks he is the solution to our defensive problems need sacking. Check a bit of history and you’ll find he got hounded out of Lyon for playing similarly, a good 6 months (next to Jose Fonte and in front of Wanyama and Schneiderlin) does not change that
David Luiz without the free kicks and creativity. He looked good in the couple of games I saw last season but then again, I’m not a professional scout!
Maybe we have sunk to keeping out better defenders fresh for the big Bournemouth match.
The press today suggests that there is change room tension: fuck me, I wonder why? Again the suggestion was made by the ‘manager’, because it’s obviously not HIS fault.