Liverpool player insists he’ll get back to his best soon, after ‘inconsistent’ season

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Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk has claimed that he’s not worried about his dip in form this season.

The centre-back hasn’t hit his usual high standards during 2022/23 and has had to field a barrage of criticism throughout the campaign. Plenty of that has been a little over the top. But Liverpool fans have come to expect so much from their No.4 and he simply hasn’t delivered during a chastening season.

Speaking to The Times about his disappointing year, Van Dijk admitted that while some criticism has been justified, he’s backing himself to bounce back.

“I know my performance has been going like the team has been going — up and down,” said the Dutchman. “I know I’m one of the players who is looked at, that I set a high standard over the last five years that it’s normal to be criticised. The only thing I can do is block the noise out and focus on how I deal with certain situations to be better.

“Over the past five years, excluding the year of my injury, I’ve been playing every three or four days to such a consistent level. I’m trying to get back to that — and I will get back it. I’m not worried about that.”

Van Dijk looking to return to where he was

If Liverpool can get Virgil back to his previous level, it’ll be absolutely enormous. Since joining for £75m in January 2018 until his injury in October 2020, the Netherlands captain was the best defender on the planet. There wasn’t even a question, that’s how good he was.

Since then there have been some real hight points, unquestionably so. The 31-year-old grew into last season and put up huge performances in both domestic cup finals.

But overall Van Dijk hasn’t quite felt like the same indomitable presence of old. That’s understandable, of course, and he’s also been played into the ground since returning from a 10-month lay-off last summer.

With the rest of the team struggling to find their old selves though, Liverpool could have really done with a firing Van Dijk this season.

As one of the real leaders in the Reds dressing room, they were looking to him to lift them. On too many occasions he has simply gone missing.

By the sounds of it, Virgil is aware of this. He realises the need to put himself back on a pedestal again and we have every confidence that he will. It’s only a matter of time.