‘Exceptional’: Erling Haaland raves about Liverpool player who he thinks may be ‘the best in the world’

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Erling Haaland addressed a potential rivalry vs Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk this season. The Manchester City star knows what he’s up against.

Erling Haaland is unquestionably one of the world’s best strikers right now and his move to the Premier League asks all sorts of questions. One of those is around how he’ll cope against new defenders.

The Premier League’s star defender is Virgil van Dijk, of course, who also happens to play for City’s presumed title rivals. There’s a natural rivalry there, then, so how does Haaland see it going?

“I’m not sure about that. It’s not me versus Virgil,” he told FourFourTwo [pg. 40 of their September issue]. “It’s not one against one. It’s 11 versus 11. I know he and I will be up against each other, but I’ll also be against Alisson and the rest of their defence.

“This is modern, top-class football – it’s about more than good individuals. We have to be great as a team, working together. It’s important not to look at individual battles too much.

“It’s always nice to face the best and that’s what Van Dijk is. I’ve played against him a few times, and he’s a really good guy as well as an exceptional footballer.

“I like to play against him because he may be the best in the world. But I have scored at Anfield and for Norway against the Netherlands…”

Erling Haaland vs Virgil van Dijk

It’s nice to see some praise for Van Dijk right now. Some of the commentary on him over recent days has been incredibly over the top. You’d think he somehow conned everyone into believing he was a world-class centre-back.

Not to say there aren’t some concerns, of course.

Haaland is right about everything he says, too. Sparking a ‘rivalry’ against a centre-back is nonsense, really, as the smart thing to do against Van Dijk is targeting his partner. That’s certainly how it tends to go when top players face Liverpool.

And it works the other way, too. Liverpool won’t try and contain Haaland with one player – they’ll use their entire defence. That’s how it went in the Community Shield to great effect.

Van Dijk remains the world’s best in our eyes, certainly, and we expect his form to rebound quickly. Even if it takes an entire defence to keep a clean-sheet, Liverpool will need him near his best when they face Haaland on October 16th.