Lovren: It´s a great pleasure to play under Klopp

Dejan Lovren says it is a ‘great pleasure’ to play under Jurgen Klopp and claims he and his Liverpool team-mates have now begun to ‘believe in themselves’.

Lovren began the season in the first team under Brendan Rodgers before losing his place in September, making just one Premier League appearance throughout the month.

He suffered an ankle injury in the League Cup against Carlisle on September 23, only returning to fitness late last month.

During his absence Liverpool sacked Rodgers and replaced him with Klopp. The arrival of the German has heralded an upturn in the fortunes of both the team and Lovren.

Following two successive substitute appearances, the Croatian centre-back started the eye-catching 4-1 win away to Manchester City on Saturday, prompting the 26-year-old to praise the impact of the new manager.

“It’s a great pleasure to play under Jurgen,” he said.

“We all know what he achieved at Borussia Dortmund. 

“It’s always great to play in the first team. 

“It’s definitely a great opportunity for me to play more games than usual,” he added, referring to the knee injury suffered by Mamadou Sakho at home to Crystal Palace earlier this month.

Buoyed by their rout of City at the Etihad Stadium, Liverpool will host Bordeaux in the Europa League on Thursday as they seek to guarantee qualification from the group stages with a win.

And Lovren knows just how crucial this match is to their chances of success in the competition.

“The most important thing was that we need to believe in ourselves and we have started to believe in ourselves,” he said.

“We know it will be a tough game. Bordeaux are [a] quality team in [the] French league. 

“We need to win if we want to be first in the group. 

“We need to approach every game the same – it’s not like Man City, but we respect everyone.”