Reds not title contenders, says Lovren

DEJAN LOVREN insists it is too early to consider Liverpool as title contenders despite their impressive start to the season.

The Croatia defender scored his first league goal for the Reds in Friday night’s 2-1 win at Chelsea, with captain Jordan Henderson thrashing home a superb second.

Diego Costa pulled a goal back after the interval but Liverpool saw out the remainder of the contest to record another positive result.

With work to improve Anfield running into the start of the campaign, Liverpool have played just once at home so far and have already visited Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea.

A win at Arsenal on the opening day was followed up with a point at Spurs, before a 4-1 thrashing of champions Leicester and Friday’s win in west London.

Only a surprise defeat at Burnley blots Liverpool’s early record but Lovren believes talk of a first league title in 27 years is premature.

“It’s too early to talk about that but we are positive,” he said.

“We have a brilliant squad, the 25 players, even those in the stand are top players.”

Despite their tough start, Liverpool have notched 11 goals, including four against both Arsenal and Leicester.

“We are a team who wants to win – we are not a team who will defend deep and await our chances,” he added.

“It’s always the same speech (from Klopp), always positive. We need to keep working hard. We’ve had a great week in training so everyone was positive.”

For Chelsea, Friday night was their first defeat under new boss Antonio Conte.

But goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois wants to bounce back with victories against Leicester in the EFL Cup and Arsenal in the league next week.

The Belgian is keen to get back to winning ways, saying: “We know how Leicester play, it’s very hard there as well.

“It will be a hard game and we should react after two disappointing games at Swansea and losing at home to Liverpool. The next game away at Arsenal we should try to win like last season.”