Virgil van Dijk didn’t have an easy time for Liverpool vs Brentford on Monday. The Dutchman had one moment labelled ‘sobering’.
Liverpool had an outrageously bad first-half against Brentford and Virgil van Dijk was largely at the centre of it. The defender wasn’t horrendous out there but had uncharacteristic moments that did look worrying.
One of those came in the 18th minute, right before Brentford got their opener. Liverpool were caught high up the pitch and a pass in behind Van Dijk allowed the hosts in.
Bryan Mbuemo ran through – and Liverpool’s star defender never looked like catching him. We’re not sure that’s ever happened before and certainly not as dramatically as this.
“That was a sobering chase for Van Dijk,” said Gary Neville on commentary for Sky Sports.
Jamie Carragher, who joined commentary, thought this was less about a lack of pace and more that Van Dijk didn’t set himself for the chase.
“I thought it was a lack of pace from Van Dijk but he just didn’t sort his feet out,” he said after seeing a replay. Carragher would go onto mention Thiago Silva as a player who gives a few yards on forwards to allow him time to correct himself.
Virgil van Dijk vs Brentford
It’s worrying, undoubtedly. Van Dijk didn’t look himself here and that could be a massive problem going forward.
The ‘positive’ is that Liverpool played on Friday and Van Dijk didn’t look slow or unlike his best. This may have been a one-off and the defender did appear to be injured when he went off at half-time.
So perhaps this is nothing to worry about and just one of those days. Maybe the real focus should be that Van Dijk wasn’t at his best and Liverpool couldn’t even come close to covering him. They instead collapsed in that first half.
That is possibly a far bigger sign of the problems at Liverpool right now.
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