A more mature version of Martin Kelly is how I would describe Lovren. A lot of people consider Kelly a versatile defender in the sense that he'd look comfortable at RB/CB/LB and I guess the same was true of Lovren at the beginning of the season but with some good performances and injuries to key players, he's started to make a breakthrough into the first team at CB. Lyon have just lost essentially 2 (okay, maybe 1.5) CBs this season (Diakhate returned to Kyiv after a season long loan) and Toulalan (who split his time in the first team between playing DM and CB).
He's a very well rounded CB who looks comfortable on the ball, reads the game very well and the closest comparison I could make to an LFC player would be Martin Kelly, but much better in the air and more composed in defence, however he is much weaker getting forward (especially weaker at crossing compared to Kelly). There's a lot of potential there and he is regarded as the best defensive talent Croatia has ever produced (to be fair, that's not too hard though as currently it's Slaven Bilic and while he was good, he was hardly brilliant).
As for price, Lyon don't sell their best prospects cheap and he arrived from Dinamo Zagreb two seasons ago for the price of €10m, combined with the fact that he is now essentially by default part of their first choice CB pair and Cris is getting old, I can't see them selling cheap. They really have a defensive crisis at the moment (only 6 first team defenders on their books and 4 are fullbacks) so it's an area they will be looking to add talent to their ranks, not getting rid of.
On a national level, he is also very highly regarded and the current lynchpin of the Croatian defense ahead of Simunic. He turned down offers from Spurs and Chelsea to join Lyon, so I think that should give you an indication of how highly rated the lad is. Good attitude, very team orientated.
edit: Hypothetically if he were to join, I'd guess he would be our 4th choice CB after Agger, Skrtel and Carragher. Although he really should be ahead of Carragher in the pecking order, I just can't see that happening.
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