Dejan Lovren and his final gift to Liverpool

Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren could leave the club this summer but his doing so could hand them one final gift.

Liverpool could have sold the Croatian last summer, but decided he was worth keeping around for one more campaign. But now Dejan Lovren could end up doing the club a massive favour.

He’s a man who has split opinion since he arrived from Southampton, but does he really deserve that reputation? Definitely not, if he hands Jurgen Klopp the type of golden handshake that has been spoken about over the past few weeks.

AS Roma have been linked with another move for the Croatian World Cup finalist, but they will do so for a much reduced fee. A deal of around £5 million has been talked about, which is heavily discounted.

But the fee isn’t really the issue here. Dejan Lovren leaving could make way for Kalidou Koulibaly to arrive from Napoli.

There has been a lot of noise surrounding Koulibaly and Liverpool. Reports are coming out every two days linking the Serie A star with a move to Anfield, which would hand Klopp one of the best defences the Premier League has ever seen.

And when you think back on the contribution that Lovren has had over the past six years, this shouldn’t be forgotten. We’re about to see one of the defender’s finest moments in red, and it’ll involve making way for someone a lot better.

That’s maybe not how he should have been remembered. Nobody plays for Klopp without being a good footballer with an outstanding work rate. He’s played 130 games for Liverpool and scored that famous goal against Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League and was handed a contract extension in 2017.

Things have changed at Anfield and standards raised. Some will get left behind by that, including Lovren.