Dejan Lovren has been given strong support by his manager, Jürgen Klopp, and West Ham’s Slaven Bilic after the defender received death threats on social media this week.
Liverpool travel to the London Stadium on Saturday and Lovren will be assessed on his fitness after he sustained an injury during the warm-up before last week’s match against Huddersfield. It was just one incident in a traumatic fortnight for the Croat in which he was substituted after half an hour in the defeat by Tottenham, suffered a torrent of media criticism and online abuse and had his house burgled. This week has ended more happily, with Lovren voted Liverpool’s player of the month in a show of support from fans.
Klopp said of the award: “It only shows how fans are different from people who are very loud on social media. That’s how I see it. In the more difficult moments you have to really show togetherness and I could not imagine the fans would react that quick.
“I really like the fact they did it, that our fans showed: ‘No, that’s not the truth.’ Yes, we make mistakes. Dejan made a mistake or two in a game but that’s not a problem, we still can show togetherness. That’s how it is.”
On the subject of social media more broadly Klopp said: “I tell the boys, don’t read it. The criticism, the things we think about the game, that’s our opinion, no other opinion is important. That does not mean I am always 100% right, it’s just that it’s the only important one. I have no problem with information but we all have to learn to judge it right.”
Bilic, who gave Lovren his first international cap when manager of Croatia, echoed Klopp’s sentiments. “Lovren is a really good lad, an honest lad, he never makes any excuses, he’s a top centre-back,” he said. “A top centre-back has his problems now and then. He makes mistakes, sometimes they are his mistakes, sometimes he’s making up for somebody else. But he’s also very unlucky; when he makes his mistakes, it doesn’t come back off the post, it’s a goal.
“It’s not easy to play centre-back for Liverpool because of where they stand. Take the way Real Madrid played against Spurs and they had probably the best centre-back in the world in Sergio Ramos. When he’s exposed on such a big space against Dele Alli and Harry Kane, he doesn’t look good. It’s very hard to play centre-back.
“Sooner or later Lovren is going to score a goal like the goal he scored against Dortmund [in the Europa League quarter-final in 2016] and he’s going to be a hero again. That’s the nature of society. The people want success straight away, they want it now and they want it tomorrow.
“I think Lovren is very strong in his head. The people who made the threats are fortunately a minority. It’s a bad way of expressing they’re not happy with the way he played. That shouldn’t be happening. Those people should be ashamed of themselves, big time.”