Dejan Lovren had an absolute stinker against Watford on Saturday evening – and was probably the worst of a bad bunch at Vicarage Road.
However, his team-mates were not up to much either, with the forwards creating literally zero opportunities and the midfielders offering zilch as well – but also getting outfought – something Jurgen Klopp will have despised.
Lovren has explained how the performance will act as a wake-up call for the rest of the season.
“It’s strange, to be honest. It hurts, really hurts,” Lovren told the Echo. “A defeat is a defeat but, you know, this was strange.
“Right from the beginning until the end, it was missing the usual things that we have. We deserved to lose. Maybe it is a wake-up call for us.
“If you look back at the last couple of games, the result was there and we got the performance that we needed but… I think this was a proper wake-up call to everyone.
“I don’t want to say that it is good but you know what I mean? It can be a benefit to help us get to the end of the season. We need to remember how it should be.
“Yes, we are nearly there [for the title] but the performance means [the assessment] was simple. We didn’t deserve anything.
“We are calm. Everyone knows it is something that we should learn from.
“The manager looked at us when he came into the dressing room and he knew that we knew it wasn’t our best performance.
“We felt a little bit ashamed, you know? We should have done better. There is no excuse for that performance.”
We thought it was strange that Klopp went with Lovren over Joel Matip and the decision turned out to be a strange one – although the Cameroonian was dreadful in his last opportunity against Shrewsbury as well.
Hopefully Joe Gomez will be back in the side next weekend, and maybe even tomorrow night against Chelsea in the FA Cup, if Klopp chooses a strong side to get us back on track after two defeats in three.
We don’t want to completely scapegoat Lovren, and in truth – his comments are fair – but this is probably one horrible performance too many from the Croat.
It’s time for him to be offloaded in the summer. If he plays again this season, let’s hope he can have one of his good games – as the bad ones are always so costly.
