The former Croatia international, who played alongside Salah at Anfield from 2017 to 2020 and has maintained a close friendship with him since, spoke to the WinWin podcast with unusual candour and personal force.
On the media treatment of Salah during his final season — in which the 33-year-old scored just seven Premier League goals after winning the division's Player of the Season award in 2024-25 — Lovren was withering.
"The way they treated him this season is not harsh. It's disgusting. Why didn't they talk about him like this for the past eight or nine years? Tell me. OK, one season, and then he's the target again. Some pundits do it just to attract attention, maybe because they haven't succeeded in other areas of their lives, so now they need to perform well."
He singled out Carragher — who had called Salah "selfish" and questioned his status as an automatic starter — with particular anger.
"Especially Carragher — he says whatever he wants. I always said he should tell him this to his face, say all these things to Mo to his face.
"He'll never say that. Because I know he never will, because he never said it to me. He's talked badly about me too, but he never said that to me anyway. He's just performing on TV and he gets paid for it, so he needs to perform this way."
He was equally direct when asked whether he took Carragher's views seriously.
"I don't take Carragher too seriously."
On Slot, Lovren's assessment was stark. He insisted Salah would have remained at Anfield had the Dutchman been dismissed earlier, and said the relationship between player and manager was the defining factor in a departure that had nothing to do with the club's ownership or broader management.
"I don't think it's the management. I think it's just one person, and I think it's just the manager. They didn't have a good relationship. Let's put it simply. With Klopp, he had a really good relationship — they knew each other very well, they trusted each other, they liked each other, and Mo gave everything on the pitch for Klopp, and Klopp gave him that trust. But with Slot it was the opposite."
He also challenged the narrative that Salah had played well in Slot's first season by his own merit.
"Now people will say, 'oh yes, but he also did well in the first year Slot came in.' But I don't think that was because of him — I think he just took over the team as it was."
Lovren accused the club of failing to protect Salah internally when he most needed it, and of allowing him to become a scapegoat for broader institutional dysfunction.
"Even if you have some problems, you have to talk about it in the dressing room, and like I said, Mo never felt that support. He was always the front-page headline. It's a deep-seated issue."