Jaap Stam says one Liverpool defender’s positioning can really improve

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Manchester United legend Jaap Stam has critiqued Virgil van Dijk’s performances for Liverpool.

Stam is widely seen as one of the Premier League’s greatest ever defenders. Despite only playing for United for three seasons, the 51-year-old is one of the players Van Dijk is often measured against.

As a fellow Dutchman, it’s a handy comparison to make. And now speaking to the likes of Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville on the Stick To Football podcast, Stam has been giving the Liverpool captain some pointers.

First of all, asked to name his ‘dream’ centre-back partner in Premier League history, the former United man went with Van Dijk.

“I’d keep it Dutch. It would be a good partnership,” Stam said. “I like the other ones as well, but I think Virgil is a very good player.”

Stam gives Van Dijk pointers

Having named Van Dijk as his ideal partner, Stam was then asked by Carragher about criticism of the Reds No.4 in the Netherlands.

“He does [get criticised],” Stam confirmed. “The feeling is communication is he is not doing enough. His leadership on the pitch, he needs to do more, especially when the team is not playing well. He needs to be the one to tell the players what to do and put them in positions to make a difference. They say he’s not doing that.”

With Carragher questioning whether that was fair on Virgil, the former AC Milan defender sat on the fence a little.

“I find it hard to see on the pitch on television, from the games I am seeing,” he said. “Sometimes you are looking at a defender and seeing what he is doing and I think he is trying to. I don’t know if it’s fair to be honest. He’s of a certain age, if you can talk about improvement, certain things he can improve or do differently.”

With Neville asking for clarification on those ‘improvements’, Stam was happy to give some pointers to his countryman.

“His positioning,” he answered. “I think at times he makes it difficult for himself. Sometimes he needs to chase when he doesn’t want to chase. He is stepping up trying to catch players offside but if his positioning is a bit better and he steps a bit more back he can solve a lot of things for himself and for his teammates as well, so you don’t get done on transition on the counter.”

This has been a relatively common criticism of Virgil. It isn’t that his positioning is necessarily bad, but he does like to sit off when others would perhaps engage higher up. But the 32-year-old does have a body of success behind him from working in this way. It isn’t for nothing.

In fairness to Van Dijk, his big knee injury in 2020 was probably a little bit of a reason for this. Not yet confident in his body’s strength, the Dutch skipper had been looking to get into as little physical scraps as possible.

But as his strength has returned, Virgil has become noticeably more active in this regard. This season he’s been nothing short of brilliant. It’s probably true that he can still improve, but if he does, it’s over for everyone else.