Dejan Lovren Defends Mohamed Salah Amid Criticism
Dejan Lovren has never been one to duck a tackle. This time, the former Liverpool defender has gone in two-footed on those he believes turned on Mohamed Salah during the Egyptian’s most turbulent season at Anfield.
In a forthright interview with WinWin, Lovren painted a picture of a club legend hounded after one poor campaign, having carried Liverpool’s attack for nearly a decade.
“The way they treated him this season is not harsh,” Lovren said. “It’s disgusting.”
One bad year, he argued, and the knives were out. “Why didn’t they talk about him like this for the past eight or nine years? Tell me… OK, one season, and then he’s the target again. There are so many other issues.”
For Lovren, the criticism crossed a line from football analysis into something far more personal. A dip in numbers after a stellar 2024-25 season became the cue for a wave of negativity that, in his eyes, ignored the context, the years of output, and the wider problems around Liverpool’s campaign.
Carragher in the firing line
Lovren saved some of his sharpest words for Jamie Carragher. The former Liverpool centre-back has been one of the more vocal pundits on Salah, accusing the forward of selfishness and questioning aspects of his game as the season unravelled.
Lovren was unimpressed. He suggested that Carragher’s barbs said more about television than tactics.
“He’s being really heavily criticised,” Lovren said. “Some pundits do it just to attract attention, maybe because they haven’t succeeded in other areas of their lives, so now they need to perform well… especially Carragher, he says whatever he wants.”
Then came the challenge.
“I always said he should tell him this to his face, say all these things to Mo to his face. He’ll never say that. Because I know he never will, because he never said it to me. He’s talked badly about me too, but he never said that to me anyway. You know, he’s just performing on TV and he gets paid for it, so he needs to perform this way.”
In Lovren’s view, Salah became an easy storyline: the star with slipping numbers, the symbol of a faltering season. The nuance disappeared, replaced by soundbites and studio performances.
Finger pointed at Slot
Lovren didn’t stop with the pundits. He went straight to the dugout.
As Salah prepares to leave Merseyside, the Croatian laid the responsibility squarely at the feet of former manager Arne Slot, arguing that a broken relationship with the coach pushed Liverpool’s record Premier League goalscorer towards the exit.
“I don’t think it’s the management (that pushed Salah to leave),” Lovren said. “I think it’s just one person, and I think it’s just the manager. They didn’t have a good relationship. Let’s put it simply.”
He drew a sharp contrast with the era of Jurgen Klopp, under whom Salah rose to superstardom and drove Liverpool to Champions League and Premier League glory.
“With Klopp, he had a really good relationship. It wasn’t always perfect, but they knew each other very well, let’s say that too, and they trusted each other, they liked each other, and Mo gave everything on the pitch for Klopp, and Klopp gave him that trust. But (with Slot) it was the opposite. It’s that simple, and everyone knows it because when you look at the previous eight or nine seasons, he did really well.”
In Lovren’s telling, the bond that once underpinned Salah’s brilliance vanished. The environment changed, the trust evaporated, and the club’s most reliable goalscorer suddenly found himself out on a limb.
“He never felt that support”
For all the tactical talk and managerial politics, Lovren kept coming back to one core accusation: Liverpool failed to protect their star.
He echoed Salah’s own complaints about feeling exposed, insisting that the forward was left to absorb the blows while others slipped into the background.
“There are other players who should also take responsibility and say, ‘yes, this is my fault’, but you know, some players never came forward,” Lovren said. “There was mismanagement; internally, they didn’t handle it well. They didn’t handle it well.”
The dressing room, he suggested, became a place where issues festered rather than got fixed.
“Even if you have some problems, you have to talk about it in the dressing room, and like I said, Mo never felt that support. He was always the front-page headline, ‘Ah, it’s Mohamed Salah, don’t be surprised.’ I mean… it’s a deep-seated issue.”
So Salah leaves Anfield not just as a record-breaker and modern icon, but as a player Lovren believes was hung out to dry in his first real slump. The goals and trophies will live forever in Liverpool’s history. The question now is whether the way this relationship ended will leave a mark just as deep.
