Dejan Lovren Defends Mohamed Salah Amid Liverpool Controversy
Dejan Lovren has never been one to pick the quiet option. This time, he has walked straight into the centre of Liverpool’s biggest debate: Mohamed Salah, his legacy, and the fallout of a bitter final season at Anfield.
The former Liverpool defender has launched a fierce defence of his close friend, accusing pundits, the club’s hierarchy and former head coach Arne Slot of failing the Egyptian at the very moment he needed protection most.
“It’s disgusting”
Speaking in a candid interview with WinWin, Lovren made it clear he has no time for the narrative that grew around Salah during his final campaign on Merseyside, a season in which his form dipped after a blistering 2024-25.
“The way they treated him this season is not harsh,” he said. “It’s disgusting. 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 almost a decade, Salah carried Liverpool’s attack, stacking goals and records while becoming a symbol of the club’s resurgence under Jurgen Klopp. One stuttering year, and Lovren watched the conversation turn from appreciation to accusation.
He did not like what he saw.
Carragher in the crosshairs
Lovren saved some of his sharpest words for Jamie Carragher. The former Liverpool defender had criticised Salah for selfishness, a line that quickly fed into the season’s dominant story: that the club’s record Premier League scorer had become a problem, not a solution.
Lovren dismissed that as theatre.
He suggested Carragher’s analysis owed more to television than tactics, more to ratings than reality, and challenged him to bring the same energy in private that he shows in the studio.
“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.
“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.”
The accusation is blunt: that Salah became a character in a show, an easy lightning rod, rather than a player being judged with balance.
Slot under fire
Lovren did not stop with the pundits. He went straight at the man he believes pushed Salah towards the exit: Arne Slot.
Behind the headlines and the soundbites, Lovren sees a simple, damaging breakdown – a relationship that never worked, in stark contrast to the bond Salah enjoyed with Klopp.
“I don’t think it’s the management (that pushed Salah to leave),” the PAOK defender 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.
“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 eyes, the equation is clear: same player, same standards, different manager, different outcome. The environment changed, the trust evaporated, and Salah chose to walk away.
“He never felt that support”
The criticism then moved upstairs. Lovren believes Liverpool’s leadership failed to shield their star from the storm when the season turned ugly.
Salah himself has already hinted at a lack of protection. Lovren went further, arguing that the club allowed one man to absorb the blame for a collective failure.
“There are other players who should also take responsibility and say, ‘yes, this is my fault’, but you know, some players never came forward,” he said. “There was mismanagement; internally, they didn’t handle it well. They didn’t handle it well.
“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.”
That is the charge sheet as Lovren sees it: a dressing room that stayed quiet, a manager who never truly connected, a board that failed to manage the noise, and a media landscape that turned a legend into a target.
Salah has gone. The numbers and trophies will remain. The question now is whether Liverpool will learn from the way one of their greatest modern players felt pushed towards the door – or repeat the same mistakes with the next icon who carries the weight of the shirt.
