‘Hard to me’: Virgil van Dijk admits £8m Liverpool player often digs him out behind the scenes

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Virgil van Dijk shared how he and Andy Robertson make their partnership for Liverpool work. The Dutchman says ‘it’s a pleasure’.

The left-hand side of Liverpool’s defence has been set for years with two of the world’s best. Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson might have been the best centre-back and left-back of the last five years.

We certainly wouldn’t have swapped either for anyone new.

Van Dijk talked about their partnership together with Gary Neville on The Overlap. He shares that the pair of them are pretty hard on one another.

“Robbo is a fantastic player, full of energy, passionate. It’s been a pleasure to play with him,” said Van Dijk. “He’s one of the leaders, in my opinion – he has that in him. Obviously, he’s the captain of Scotland.

“I played against him when I was at Celtic, of course, playing against Dundee United. And funnily enough, I was saying to our scouts that we should try and get him at Celtic. In the end he went to Hull and things happen.

“Just in general, playing with him has been incredible. I’m hard to him but he’s hard to me – we have that good relationship where we want to get the maximum out of each other.”

The Van Dijk and Robertson partnership

It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that the two of them are hard on one another. For one, they’re each playing at the absolute highest level – those standards should be their norm.

And it’s a way of doing things that certainly works for them. Neither Van Dijk nor Robertson have had particularly long spells out of form over the last six years. They might be the only players in the squad of whom you can say that – alongside Alisson.

Going even further than that, Van Dijk and Robertson may also be the only two players of this squad who are comfortably in Liverpool’s all-time XI. Mohamed Salah would also have a strong case, as would Alisson – but there are strong cases against them, too.

Van Dijk and Robertson probably do make it in. Their partnership has been one of the most incredible we’ve ever seen at the club – and should carry on for a few more years to come.