Dejan Lovren’s long goodbye will cost £15m

Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren’s long goodbye will end up costing the club a whopping £15 million.

AS Roma are ready to come back in for the Liverpool man, who were interested in the Croatian last summer but saw their offer rebuffed. But they will only pay around £5 million.

There a curious rationale behind Jurgen Klopp and Michael Edwards and the way they operate in the transfer market.

This club are more than happy to let their players lose value in the market if they can get one or two more seasons out of them before letting them leave for a reduced fee, or nothing.

Alberto Moreno and Daniel Sturridge were the guinea pigs as they performed a useful squad role but wound down their deals and left for free.

Liverpool are at risk of this with Georginio Wijnaldum, who is a ticking time bomb and could sign a pre-contract agreement with foreign sides in January 2021.

Dejan Lovren is another prime example of this. Last summer Roma wanted to pay a cool £20 million for the Croatian, an amount a lot of fans would have snapped the Italian’s hand off for.

But Klopp wanted to keep him around, and that decision has paid off. When Liverpool suffered an injury crisis and Joel Matip was ruled out alongside Joe Gomez, Lovren stepped up to the plate.

While he looked rusty initially, the Croatian grew into the role and after a few games was putting in a high level of performance. It’s hard to put a number on that, but he certainly played his part in that 25 point lead at the top of the Premier League.

If winning the first title in 30 years with his help isn’t worth a few bob, I don’t know what is, and it’s time to give him one last good contract and the chance to play first team football on a regular basis while he’s still in his prime.