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Dejan Lovren has promised Liverpool FC fans a much-improved performance when the Reds take on Real Madrid this week.

And the Croatian admitted Sunday’s game at Queens Park Rangers had left him “unhappy”, even though his side eventually won the match.

Brendan Rodgers’ side were far from convincing in pinching all three points at Loftus Road, needing a stoppage-time own goal to secure a nervy 3-2 victory, having twice surrendered the lead in the game.

Defensively, their performance was symptomatic of the Reds’ season so far.

They have kept just one clean sheet in 11 games in all competitions, and with Real heading for Anfield having scored 32 goals in their last seven outings, Lovren knows they will need to raise their game significantly come Wednesday night.

He said: “We need to improve and play more like a team. We need to show more. At QPR, we should have comfortably seen the game out, but we didn’t and that is frustrating.

“We will not play like that against Real Madrid, you can be sure of that.

“We will be better. We cannot play like this because we know what we can expect from Real Madrid.

"Their players, we know who they are, and we will prepare a little bit different.

“I was glad when the QPR game was over because I think one minute more and it would have been 3-3. It’s the first time in my career that I was unhappy after the game even though we won, because we didn’t play good.

“We knew it would be a difficult game, but I thought we would show a little bit more and that we would be a bit stronger, but we weren’t.

“The first half was as bad we’ve played this season.”

The Reds head into Wednesday’s game knowing a defeat would put them on the back foot in terms of qualification for the knockout stages, with Basel having stolen a march by beating them in their last group game.

Lovren, though, insists they will not go into the game with fear, and says he is looking forward to testing himself against Real’s stars.

“It’s not daunting,” he said.

“It’s a pleasure to play against these players. I am not afraid. No-one in our team is afraid.

"We respect their players but we will show something completely different on Wednesday.

“We need to be more compact, to run more, we need to be like one player on the pitch, all together, to breath the same.

"We have amazing individual players, but we need to show it as a team.

“It’s difficult to say what has been wrong this season. A lot of things are not right at the moment, but it will come.”

Lovren knows he and his fellow defenders will have their work cut out facing world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo at Anfield, but says the Portugal star is not the only one capable of hurting Liverpool.

He said: “Obviously, he is an amazing player. I think he has seven games, 15 goals or something like that this season (19 goals in 12 games all competitions.

“But it’s not just Ronaldo, you can’t just concentrate on him because you have other players who are scoring goals. We need to be like a team.”

He added: “I’ve played against Ronaldo three times, for Lyon. He wasn’t on my side, so it wasn’t too much of a problem!”