Lovren keen to reach full fitness as soon as possible

Dejan Lovren made his return from a lengthy pelvic injury in Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea last night in the Carabao Cup, and the defender is hoping to reach full fitness again as soon as possible.

It was Lovren’s first match since the World Cup final in July and there were some signs of rustiness in his play at Anfield, but the Croatian international recognised that the 90-minute run-out was crucial in his quest for match fitness and aims to build on it in the coming games.

“After this injury that I had it’s good to be back with the team and to have a couple of minutes or all the minutes on the pitch,” Lovren told Liverpoolfc.com.

“I’m quite happy, so hopefully I can be much, much fitter in the next couple of games. I carried it [the injury] for a long time, to be honest, and hopefully it’s everything behind me so I can be 100 per cent again.”

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LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 26: Eden Hazard of Chelsea scores his sides second goal during the Carabao Cup Third Round match between Liverpool and Chelsea at Anfield on September 26, 2018 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Getty Images)

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Liverpool had led through an acrobatic Daniel Sturridge goal, but a late fightback from Chelsea saw Emerson and Eden Hazard turn the game on its head. It was a disappointing end to what was otherwise an even contest.

“Obviously we had the game in our control,” said Lovren. “We scored and we played quite well, we had also a couple of big chances but we weren’t deadly enough today like these previous games.

“And then in the last 10 minutes they came back and unfortunately they scored a second goal and then we couldn’t come back again.”

Jurgen Klopp’s men have the chance to immediately strike back on Saturday when they take on Chelsea in the Premier League in a bid to remain top of the table, and Lovren believes Liverpool can up their game for the tie.

“Maybe this is tonight like a warm-up for Saturday and so we know what we need to do better,” he said.

“When you look altogether, it’s the first time that we played like that, [there were] a lot of changes and it was looking quite well, until of course they scored a second goal… but we will take it.

“On Saturday we have a big game against them and we will improve, definitely. I’m confident that we will do much, much better.”

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Source: anfieldhq.com