If there’s person who has a right to an opinion on Liverpool centre-backs, it’s Jamie Carragher.
The Englishman played at the back between 1996 and 2013, racking up over 700 appearances, winning a bunch of trophies and acquiring legendary status by the end of his tenure.
In truth, we’ve not properly replaced him since he left, but Carragher thinks in Dejan Lovren, there’s hope for the future.
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The Croat arrived in 2014 and was so poor to begin with most of the fans wrote him off as one our worst ever signings, but since Jurgen Klopp replaced Brendan Rodgers, there’s been a significant improvement – and the 27-year-old is now the first-choice central defender.
“He gets that big money move to Liverpool and it seemed to fall apart in his first season,” Carragher told Goal.com.
“I think it wasn’t helped by Brendan Rodgers’ team and they way they set up, they were on the front foot and as a defender it makes it more difficult.
“I don’t think that’s the case now with Jurgen Klopp and that’s what’s helped his performances and made him look more like a £20m player.
“But I still think there’s a way to go for him yet, I still think there’s some improvement we’d like to see at Liverpool – but he has vastly improved in his second season.”
If Joel Matip can hit the ground running, we might have found a partnership with real potential. In our first two games of the campaign we conceded five with Lovren and Ragnar Klavan alongside each other, but when Matip replaced the Estonian, we’ve only let in one in two.
With Mamadou Sakho seemingly frozen out, Lovren and Matip have a chance to provide our defence the sturdy basis it’s been crying out for since Carra’s departure.
Fingers crossed they can make it happen.