Brendan Rodgers has said Dejan Lovren needed reassuring he would succeed at Liverpool after losing confidence during a difficult debut season at Anfield. The Croatia international has made an encouraging start to this campaign in a Liverpool defence that has yet to concede a Premier League goal. A fourth consecutive clean sheet at home to West Ham United on Saturday would equal the club’s record from the start of a league campaign, achieved a decade ago.
Lovren struggled for form following his £20m arrival from Southampton last summer and to secure a regular place alongside Martin Skrtel with competition from Mamadou Sakho. However, the 26-year-old has responded well to being told he would be first choice in pre-season and Rodgers admits psychology, plus the team’s defensive structure, is behind Lovren’s improvement.
The Liverpool manager said: “Like a lot of players it was always difficult that first year coming in. There was a lack of stability in the group and it was a case of reassuring him that he was still a top-quality player.
“What has really helped him is how quickly the full-backs close the game down when we lose the ball. In those situations [Nathaniel] Clyne and [Joe] Gomez really help the centre-backs. But for Dejan, he’s much more patient in his game now, he’s got the stability of playing. He’s in the team and he’s in because he had a good pre-season so he’s in good condition. He’s focused but he’s also a bit more relaxed in his position.”
Lazar Markovic will become the fourth of nine players who joined Liverpool last summer to leave during this transfer window when he completes a season-long loan to Fenerbahce. But Rodgers says there was never a question of Lovren increasing that damning statistic.
“I spoke to him on that last season and told him it would be a great learning year for him,” he said. “Of course your confidence can be affected but he’s continued to work very hard and he listens and learns. He knows he’s still got to improve elements of his game but you’re seeing that confidence and that stature he has and over the course of the season you will see a different player.”
Rodgers said Liverpool will not be active on transfer deadline day having signed seven players this summer, although the club still wishes to offload Fabio Borini and José Enrique. Liverpool have resisted approaches for Sakho since the £19m defender lost his place to Lovren and Didier Deschamps, the France coach, has said he dropped the centre-half from his squad to face Serbia and Portugal next month due to his predicament at Anfield.
Rodgers said: “That never concerns me. I always have respect for the player and I understand the situation. If you look at Mamadou’s competition for France, you’ve got Varane, Koscielny and Mangala.
“If you want to be playing international football, ideally you want to be playing in your club team but I can’t affect that. All I can say is that for now Mama’s an important part of our squad. At the moment he’s not in the team but he’s working hard in training and hopefully looking to do everything he can to ensure that when the chance does come, because invariably it does, he’s ready to take it.”
