Dejan Lovren has suggested that he didn’t realise just how important Jurgen Klopp had been to him until he left Liverpool.
Lovren spent almost five years playing for Klopp. Already at the club when the German joined in October 2015, he left a Champions League and Premier League winner in 2020.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing for the Croatian at Anfield, though. By the time Liverpool won those two biggest of prizes, Lovren was already very much a squad player. As a result, he opted to leave the club once his contract expired, joining Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg, before moving back to Lyon last January.
An ever-confident person, at times you got the feeling that Lovren very much disagreed with Klopp’s decision to play Joel Matip or Joe Gomez ahead of him. But speaking to LFCTV yesterday, the 33-year-old admitted just how important the manager had been to him, in retrospect.
“People don’t understand, but now I understand how much effect Jurgen Klopp made personally to me,” said the centre-back. “Just some words and also the words to the team, how much it has an effect to you and to the team. He’s choosing the right words at the right time and there aren’t too many coaches like that. That’s why some coaches are special, like him, like Pep Guardiola, like Ancelotti. So many years in this kind of game, but they know what to say at the right time and how to motivate these players.”
Lovren recognises Klopp input
During his years at Liverpool, there will have been few players Klopp has had to cajole as much as Lovren.
Although exceptional on his day, the Croat was also a little bit of an accident waiting to happen. There were plenty of games where he simply looked a level below what Liverpool required.
Not many Reds fans will have forgotten his woeful performance during a 4-1 defeat away at Tottenham Hotspur in 2017, for example. That was before Klopp brought in Virgil van Dijk from Southampton. It’s reasonable to suggest that Lovren’s performance that day is what gave Liverpool the push they needed to go and get Virgil in January.
To a lot of supporters, that had looked like the end of Dejan Lovren at Liverpool. But to be fair to Degsi, he did bounce back. Having spent a little time out of the side, he regained his composure during the second half of 2017/18 and was probably Liverpool’s best player in the Champions League final loss that season.
While testament to his own clear mental strength, that should also be a feather in Klopp’s cap. It would have been easy for the manager to simply cast Lovren aside and bring in other options. But Jurgen didn’t do that.
The encouragement and confidence he gave Dejan allowed him to push onto greater heights in the immediate aftermath of a real failure. Only the best can do that. Thankfully for us, that’s exactly what Klopp is.
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