Revealed: Liverpool's radical plan to heal star and ease injury crisis

DEJAN LOVREN is to visit controversial ‘placenta doctor’ Marijana Kovacevic in an attempt to speed up his return to action for Liverpool.

 

Dejan Lovren walking gingerly off the pitch after suffering a hamstring injury at Anfield

 

The centre-back is scheduled to go to Belgrade for treatment on the hamstring injury he suffered against Stoke City on Tuesday, which rules him out of tonight’s FA Cup tie with Exeter City and next week’s high-profile Premier League games with Arsenal and Manchester United.

Among Kovacevic’s methods is the use of fluids derived from horse placenta which are massaged onto the problem area and which she claims cuts short the healing process.

The Anfield club is in the midst of an injury epidemic with 12 players out for the Exeter game and manager Jurgen Klopp targeting his former club, Borussia Dortmund, for defensive reinforcements with Neven Subotic of interest.

 

Liverpool sent four players, Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson, Albert Riera and Fabio Aurelio, to visit her as far back as 2009 and a number of other former Premier League stars have been to receive treatment, including Robin van Persie and Frank Lampard.

In addition, Diego Costa went to Serbia to see Kovacevic in a desperate attempt to recover from a hamstring injury inside two weeks and play for Atletico Madrid in the 2014 Champions League Final.

The striker started the game against Real Madrid but was forced to limp off after just nine minutes.

 

Van Persie visited Kovacevic while with Arsenal, but manager Arsene Wenger was sceptical about the impact of the methods.

“I have seen so many people sent there (Serbia) and in five days they can play,” he said back in 2009. “But they can only play with injections and then they have a recurrence of a muscle injury always.

“You cannot shorten it (the recovery period).”