It was fortunate for Dejan Lovren, in the wake of a stunning 3-0 home defeat, that West Ham manager Slaven Bilic was on hand to give the case for the defence because, on the evidence of the previous 90 minutes, defending was the last thing on the Liverpool centre-half's mind.
Only 24 hours before this calamity, Lovren's manager Brendan Rodgers had talked him up, claiming the Croat was about to shake off the malaise of a difficult debut season at Anfield and finally demonstrate why he was signed for £20million from Southampton last summer.
The manager's optimism proved wildly misplaced as West Ham ended a 52-year wait for a victory at Anfield, a sequence that stretched back to the September day in 1963 when Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters were on the mark in a 2-1 win.
The current Hammers line-up may not boast that pedigree but, with Lovren and his defensive partner Martin Skrtel in this form, they scarcely needed such quality. Skrtel's poor defensive header gifted the opening goal to impressive debutant Manuel Lanzini before Lovren allowed the Argentine to skip past him, as he attempted to shepherd the ball out of play, and cross for Mark Noble to double the lead.
“He made a mistake. He was over-confident and that can happen,” said Bilic of his countryman Lovren. “I spoke to him about that in Istanbul when Besiktas beat Liverpool in the Europa League last season. I put him in the Croatia team when he was very young. I know him best.
“When he's concentrated and thinking only about his own game, not about the left-back or whoever is alongside him, there are very few centre-halves who are better than him. One mistake anyone can do but if you are telling me that Liverpool lost because of Dejan Lovren then no, no, no, no, no. It wasn't down to him.
“I'm not objective about him because I like him. It was a mistake but a lot of Liverpool players made mistakes. He can be a strong person but if you get kicked in the head every day then it's hard to stay strong. He was great against Arsenal. It is all down to confidence.”
Liverpool's cause was not helped by the dismissal of Philippe Coutinho, for a second bookable offence, which was followed by Noble also getting harshly sent off, before Diafra Sakho completed the rout in injury-time thanks to more unconvincing defending from Lovren and Skrtel.
But Rodgers, who witnessed the unfamiliar scene of Anfield emptying well before the final whistle, has more to be concerned about than just his defence. With Raheem Sterling leaving this summer and Luis Suarez sold 12 months earlier, Liverpool once more face the challenge of re-inventing their forward line.
“It's going to be a really difficult league to get your home wins in,” said Rodgers, citing the scarcity of home wins in the Premier League, prior to yesterday at least. “There will be lots of games like that and we have to find the way to win them. For us, we hope to be better in our own performance level. We want to be better and we have to be better.” – The Independent