£220k-a-week Liverpool player is by far most likely to be affected by World Cup, Klopp must be careful

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The World Cup will likely hit Virgil van Dijk harder than any other Liverpool player – by far. The Dutchman will need great management.

Liverpool didn’t have many players at the World Cup, all things considered. Despite being one of the best teams in the world, only seven travelled for the tournament.

Of those, even fewer played regularly for their countries. Trent Alexander-Arnold, for instance, could barely get on the pitch. Ibrahima Konaté had a mixed bag – he stayed all the way to the final but didn’t start every game.

And so it isn’t easy to know who will truly feel the effects of a mid-season tournament. Alexander-Arnold didn’t exactly get a holiday – but he wasn’t playing, either. Darwin Nunez played every game for Uruguay but bowed out in the group stage.

For one player, though, it seems clear. Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp must manage Virgil van Dijk correctly.

Virgil van Dijk at the World Cup

Data from the Athletic shows that Van Dijk played by far the most minutes of any Liverpool player at the World Cup. In fact, only eight Premier League players featured in more – and that’s despite the Netherlands bowing out in the quarter-final.

And so given Van Dijk is now 31, the Reds can’t afford to rush him back. Especially with another piece of information from the Athletic’s article.

They show how the Dutchman played more minutes than any other player at the tournament since the start of last season. By some way, too – 250 minutes more than second-placed Joao Cancelo.

That’s quite scary, then. The start of last season, after all, is a notable timeframe for Van Dijk as that’s the entire span after his serious knee injury in 2020. It’s an unbelievable amount of football for someone coming off of an injury like that.

Players who went to Qatar will feel the negative effects of this World Cup. That’s inevitable when you put football’s most intense tournament into the middle of a season. But Van Dijk, with his record over the last year, may feel it more than most.