Dejan Lovren has not had the best of times in a Liverpool jersey in recent weeks. The Croatian defender has had his problems related to injuries and use of pain-killers but the nail in the proverbial coffin was his performance against Tottenham.

The former Southampton man had a horrendous outing and was taken off after half an hour, where his two mistakes led to two goals. Things got worse for him when his family was attacked by a Liverpool supporter on social media, with death threats being sent to the defender.

That was an appalling situation and no player should ever have to deal with such threats from any person, irrespective of how good or bad they have been for the club.

While the Croatian has not played a minute since being taken off against Spurs, he did win something nevertheless, it was the player of the month award for the month of October (Liverpool Echo).

Lovren was voted the best, where he just edged out Mohamed Salah. But both players were on 33%. It would come as a surprise to many as Salah was leading the race for the Liverpool player of the month award for a while.

The Croatian did not play against Huddersfield last week and also did not take part in the win over Maribor in the Champions League. Initially, Lovren was included in the starting XI against Huddersfield but he was “injured” during the warm-up and was replaced by Klavan.

While we should get behind Lovren and not ridicule or abuse him due to his tough times off the pitch, winning this award seems a little out of order given that he didn’t even play in one of the games during the month.

Salah should have been the rightful winner, thanks to his performances, and he has been our best player this season. Lovren, on the other hand, has struggled for form and might be replaced by someone coming in the winter window.

For now, we have him as one of our first-choice defenders and hopefully, this period away from the first-team will help him get his mojo back and also lead to better performances and more clean sheets.