Dejan Lovren has travelled to Croatia to visit a strength and conditioning coach in an effort to be ready for Liverpool’s Champions League clash with Bayern Munich next Tuesday, according to the Mirror.
The centre-back is not expected to be fit in time for the match, with Jurgen Klopp likely to field either Fabinho or Jordan Henderson in the heart of defence, but it is understood that the World Cup finalist has stepped up his efforts to be available.
Instead of travelling to Marbella with the rest of the Reds’ squad this week, Lovren made the journey to his home country for specific training on the hamstring issue that has kept him out since January.
OPINION
Jurgen Klopp has been fairly pessimistic about Lovren’s chances of making Tuesday night’s game, but the Croatian doesn’t appear to have gotten the memo. Obviously, if he is fully fit and able to feature then that would be a massive boost for Liverpool, who are faced with the prospect of starting a worryingly makeshift backline without him, but at this stage, given how uncertain his manager seemed over his availability, there’s no guarantee that he will play a part even if his strength and conditioning training is a success. Klopp will not want to risk potentially damaging his player’s hamstring even further by allowing him play if he is anything less than 100% ready, even if that means starting a side that looks weaker for it. Regardless of Tuesday’s events, however, Lovren’s injury, and those of his teammates, will have acted as a real eye opener for the manager, who will now be looking at his squad and realising that he needs reinforcements desperately.
