Rumour Mongering: Dejan Lovren Heading to Zenit?

Dejan Lovren, oh Dejan. Dejan, Dejan, Dejan.

Remember when we signed Lovren? It was just after we’d scored over 100 goals while conceding for fun. Everyone got that we weren’t going to be as potent in attack without Luis Suarez, but that’s fine. We’ll tighten up at the back to balance it out. We’ve got better defenders to do it. We’ve got Lovren.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

The truth is that for all Lovren has been a figure of ridicule at times, he really has been a perfectly useful squad player in the successful recent seasons. The club have probably outgrown him a bit, but that’s fine. It makes sense that he’d want to go elsewhere for regular first team football.

And so the Daily Mail claim that he’s wanted by Zenit (they’re not called Zenit St. Petersburg. It’s just Zenit. Everyone gets this wrong). The report states that Zenit see him as a replacement for Branislav Ivanovic who, without googling, I’m guessing is about 43 (update: he’s 36). Apparently Liverpool aren’t necessarily in need to sell, and it would take an offer of around £15 million to make things interesting.

I have no idea how the Mail would know so much about the inner workings of a Russian Premier League side, so I’m inclined not to believe this one. But it’s nonetheless the kind of thing we might see happen over the summer. Lovren has been angsty about playing time in the past, and the situation isn’t likely to improve for him next season. It’s not inconceivable that Ki-Jana Hoever or Sepp van den Berg could even get minutes ahead of him at times.

I don’t imagine many at the club would wish Lovren ill if he were to depart. He’s been basically solid enough except when he wasn’t. He feels a bit like he’s from a bygone era already, and for that reason, we’d be not too unhappy to part ways.