Former Liverpool forward Joe Cole was far from impressed with what he saw from Virgil van Dijk after Bournemouth scored this afternoon.
Van Dijk was at fault for Philip Billings’ goal, letting Dango Ouattara skip past him to provide the assist. It was a strange piece of play from Virgil, who just seemed to give up his chase of the Bournemouth man.
Having seen the ball hit the net, Van Dijk was then spotted throwing his arms up in the air in frustration. And speaking to BT Sport at half-time, Cole said he wasn’t too happy with the Dutchman’s reaction.
“It’s a simple pass over top. Now he gets back in, now he needs to switch on, he should be in business. When have we ever seen Van Dijk just let someone stroll past him in that situation. [He] switches off,” said the pundit.
“Look at the reaction. You don’t want that for your captain.”
Virgil fails to build on good form
The goal aside, this afternoon’s performance left a whole lot to be desired from Virgil. We’ve seen him look a little too lethargic at times this season and today was a revisitation of that.
Prior to the goal, the 31-year-old had already looked susceptible to the pace of Ouattara in behind. That’s fine, the Burkina Faso international is outrageously quick.
But what isn’t fine is that there appeared to be no contingency plan from Van Dijk. He looked angry and a little distracted by the Cherries ability to keep getting in behind him.
Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do against quality attacks. But with respect to Bournemouth – who were good today – you’d expect Virgil to be able to deal with them.
It wasn’t just a couple of defensive lapses that were cause for concern with the Dutchman, though. He missed Liverpool’s two best chances of the first-half, one an absolute guilt-edged free header.
Of course, our No.4 is allowed a bad game or two – he isn’t a robot. He’s also been in pretty good form since returning from injury. It also should be said that those around him hardly covered themselves in glory either. Having said that, it’s reasonable to expect a little more from the man who is rightly claimed as one of the very best ever in his position.
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