Former Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina has reacted to Jamie Carragher’s latest tweet to Virgil Van Dijk.
Van Dijk made some waves recently by claiming to Gary Neville on The Overlap that Carragher wouldn’t make the current Liverpool squad.
“Not even in the first twenty, he’d be in the stands,” said the Liverpool man when asked if the Reds Legend would be in Jurgen Klopp’s team. “No, and I’m dead serious about that.”
As you’d expect, Carragher has had something to say about Van Dijk’s comments. Following the news that Liverpool will play Real Madrid in the Champions League last-16, the pundit posted a photo of the Reds side that beat Real 5-0 in 2009.
“Last LFC team to beat Real Madrid, 5-0 on aggregate! Hopefully you can keep two clean sheets Virgil Van Dijk in the next clash!” wrote Carragher, tagging Liverpool’s £75m centre-back. The tweet was much to the amusement of Reina, who waded in via his own Twitter account.
“You make the 11 mate!! He was only kidding I’m sure!! The squad at least!!” laughed the ‘keeper, who now plays for Villarreal.
Van Dijk sets up war of words with Carragher
All good fun from three Liverpool legends. It has to be said though, that Van Dijk’s words seemed unnecessarily harsh.
The 31-year-old could have played along with Neville, whilst still paying homage to a genuine icon of the club. Instead, Van Dijk made his feelings abundantly clear.
And despite Reina’s words of reassurance to his old teammate, it was pretty clear that Van Dijk wasn’t kidding either.
Perhaps Liverpool’s No.4 had been riled by some of Carragher’s punditry work. The Holland captain has spoken previously about how ex-players put the spotlight on current one’s too much.
Maybe this was his way off letting Carra know that some of his criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed.
Whatever it was, it would be fair to say that Van Dijk may regret his words. While he can be a little opinionated at times, Carragher is usually balanced and reasonable with any criticism.
Now given a reason to stick the boot in on the Liverpool player, he surely won’t hold back in the future.
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