Despite having more than a successful first season for Southampton, Dejan Lovren will never be high in any Saints fan’s list of top defenders, mainly because of the way he agitated for a move to Liverpool after only 12 months on the south coast.

Mauricio Pochettino’s first Southampton signing could however perhaps be excused for his mercenary tendencies as his childhood had been a stressful and impoverished one.

Born in Bosnia-Herzegovina his Croatian parents fled to Munich to avoid the conflict when he was just three years old but when he was ten they had to return when their visas expired. Back in Croatia, Dejan struggled with his new surroundings and with his father struggling to find work things were grim and he confessed to the programme soon after joining Saints “there was one winter that I will remember for the rest of my life”.

He had started playing football while in Munich and now back in Croatia he finally arrived at Zagreb, via a couple of local clubs, where he experienced Champions League qualifiers and international football. Moving to Lyon he won the Coupe de France which set him up nicely for the transition into English football with Saints and in 2013-14 they enjoyed their best ever Premier League season. Which was one reason the £20m move to Liverpool provoked such ill-feeling with the fans (despite the estimated profit reckoned to be in the region off £12m) and some have since indulged in an element of schadenfreude with his subsequent travails with Liverpool, although he has had his share of the good times too. He was an unused substitute when Liverpool beat Spurs in the 2019 Champions League Final.