Liverpool suffered their first league defeat of the season last night as Premier League champions Manchester City closed the gap at the top of the table.

It was a highly entertaining game with both sides trying their upmost to outdo the other.

In the end, it was Pep Guardiola’s men that claimed the important victory.

Reds boss Jurgen Klopp has to realise that for all his team’s hardwork, they were ultimately left undone because their own defender Dejan Lovren wasn’t up to speed.

The twenty-nine year old centre back was too slow and was at fault for both goals conceded.

For first goal, Dejan struggled to get close enough to City striker Sergio Aguero inside the penalty area and that was time enough for the Argentine international to smash the ball into the back of the net!

The second strike came about after Lovren stayed a yard back from the rest of his defence. Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson all managed to keep a higher line but the Croat didn’t step up and that allowed winger Raheem Sterling to break the offside trap and assist Leroy Sane for the game’s winner.

Now the Croatian defender can be very accomplished and on his day he can be terrific but unfortunately he suffers from meltdowns and that can sometimes happen in the bigger occasions.

While Liverpool are still four points ahead in the title race, the club haven’t won a top flight title since 1990 and that causes nervous for all within Anfield.

Can they really rely on Dejan Lovren for the huge occasions? 

For me, Liverpool’s defence looks a lot stronger having Joe Gomez as Virgil’s centre-half partner.

Now with Gomez out injured, as he is at the moment, the Reds boss needs to then pick another pairing.

Lovren is usually the man to step up. That works for some of the time but not all of the time as last night proved. Oh and yesterday wasn’t the first time Lovren has suffered from a woeful performance in a game like that, we all remember his disastrous outing against Tottenham Hotspur last season.

The former Lyon and Southampton defender isn’t mobile enough and he suffers from lapses in concentration. Those aren’t traits you want in your players if you’re chasing for a league title.

Last month Dejan said this to The BBC:

“Hopefully we can be unbeaten until the end of the season,”  

“That is why we came to Liverpool.”

“Arsenal did it before so why not?”

That statement goes against all the others that have been coming out of Liverpool in recent weeks. Players and the manager have been discussing taking one game at a time, then Lovren discusses finishing the term unbeaten, adding pressure onto his teammates and raising expectation from the fans.

The problem is lack of options for Klopp. We know Gomez is out with a fractured leg. Also out is his fellow centre back Joel Matip, who has a broken collarbone.

Since joining The Reds in 2016, Matip has missed forty games due to injuries. With that in mind, I don’t think Jurgen can rely on the twenty-seven year old either.

That leads me to think that Klopp might need to bring in another defensive recruit this January, to give his side the best possible opportunity of securing that first Premier League title.

Someone like Nathan Ake, who has partnered Van Dijk with The Netherlands, could be an option. According to Goal.com, AS Roma’s Greek central defender Kostas Manolas has a €36m release clause in his contract.

Those are just two names that would bolster The Reds backline.

I know Jurgen Klopp won’t publicly slate Dejan Lovren but he was ruthless when it came to replacing Loris Karius, maybe the German boss needs to show that cold streak again and bring in a Lovren replacement to shore up his club’s title challenge.

Posted on January 4th, 2019 by scott
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