‘How many players?’: Merson picks on one Liverpool star to show just how bad things are at Anfield

Add as preferred source on Google

Paul Merson believes Virgil van Dijk is the finest example of how bad Liverpool are right now. The centre-back experiences something new.

Liverpool aren’t playing well and Virgil van Dijk is the finest example of that. That’s how Paul Merson sees things, anyway, as he dissects the Reds for Sky Sports.

“Their problems at the back start from the front,” says Merson. “They’re not closing down as a unit – you can go on about how talented that front three was, but they closed down from the front. It only took one more pass, and they’d score.

“Now they don’t – so teams get through that press, if there is one, then they’re into a midfield three which isn’t the best in the country, and then you’re running at the back four.

“How many players have run at Van Dijk this season, compared to the last three or four years? It doesn’t matter how good a player you are when you’ve got people running at you left, right and centre.”

Van Dijk an example of how bad Liverpool are

Van Dijk is one fine example, certainly. Trent Alexander-Arnold is another. Fabinho is a third. In other words, the players getting stick right now are the ones struggling in Liverpool’s system.

After all, the Reds ask a lot of this trio. They frequently risk being left in isolation as Liverpool press high and if that press continues to break down, they’re exposed. Fabinho is possibly the absolute best example of it as he struggles to stop counter-attacks on his own.

Merson largely puts Liverpool’s problems down to losing Sadio Mané but that’s not the issue here. Mané played as a centre-forward last season as the Reds chased trophies, meaning Roberto Firmino is the one replacing him in the press. Firmino knows how to press from the front. He knows it better than anyone, in fact.

The real problem is that Liverpool are a second slow to cover each other and a second slow to close players down. That hesitation – surely brought on by exhaustion, either mental or physical – is leaving their 4-3-3 exposed.

Once you’re past Fabinho or Alexander-Arnold, players are naturally running at Van Dijk. That hasn’t happened before.

A change of system is one fix, as we saw against Rangers. Otherwise, it might mean more rotation from Liverpool as they look to get back to normal.