Liverpool centre back Dejan Lovren will be out with a stomach complaint for a further month, according to the Liverpool Echo.
The newspaper reports that the 29-year-old aggravated the injury while on World Cup duty in Russia this summer, and the club are extremely wary of rushing him back too soon.
The senior player is his working hard on his recovery at the club’s Melwood training base, and has begun running and doing work with a football.
The Echo claim that manager Jurgen Klopp initially anticipated Lovren would be fit for selection after the current international break, but that no longer appears to be the case and he could potentially be back to action in a months’ time in mid-October.
OPINION
Lovren’s injury troubles, while concerning, are not the major issue they would have been a few months ago. That’s because of his replacement in the Liverpool team at the start of this season, Joe Gomez. The England international has been superb in relief of the 29-year-old, and has likely taken his spot for good. It’s unlikely that even if Lovren suddenly healed today he would be picked ahead of Gomez for the Reds’ next game. However, the former Southampton man had a good season last year and an excellent World Cup for his country, having him back can only be a good thing. Klopp is sensible not to rush him, though. He’s coming back from a couple of months on the sidelines, and was dealing with the problem even before then. The form of Gomez and Virgil van Dijk means that there’s no urgent reason to hurry him back to the line up. Lovren may not like it, but the club are doing the right thing here for his long term future.
