Virgil van Dijk managed to score the winning goal against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.
Arne Slot’s men were hosting the La Liga outfit at Anfield in their opening Champions League game of the season.
Most fans expected the clash to be a bit on the boring side due to the way that Diego Simeone sets his teams up.
However, since Liverpool scored two goals in the opening 10 minutes, it made the game much more entertaining.
Indeed, it still took a 91st-minute header from Van Dijk to get the win over the line, but the main thing that matters is that Liverpool left their home ground with all three points.
Leon Osman says that Virgil van Dijk spoke to the referee about how close Atletico Madrid’s players were to him on corners
One of Liverpool’s greatest assets is the height of their two centre-backs.
Ibrahima Konate and Van Dijk tower above most other players, and although Liverpool don’t have that much height across the rest of their team, their two centre-backs more than cover them for that.
Of course, the Dutchman is Liverpool’s biggest threat from set-pieces and has scored most decent crosses that have come into the box.
However, while speaking on BBC Radio Five Live in quotes relayed by BBC Sport, Leon Osman shared an insight into what Van Dijk did to give himself an advantage from the corner.
“We’re going to look at it on Match of the Day, but Virgil van Dijk was on to the referee at previous corners about being fouled to basically get his space, to make sure he wasn’t marked too tightly,” he said.
“It worked, and it got him the room he needed. Then he bullies his man for his goal.”
Liverpool have to stop leaving it until the end of the game to beat their opponents
The 2025-26 season has gone rather well for Liverpool so far.
Indeed, the fact that they lost the Community Shield against Crystal Palace is far from ideal, but seeing as though it’s a glorified friendly, it’s doubtful that anyone involved with Liverpool will be losing too much sleep over it.
The main things that matter for the Anfield outfit this term are the Premier League and the Champions League, and with the way they’ve panned out so far, it doesn’t feel like things could be going much better.
However, even though their Premier League record is perfect, the fact that they’ve left it until the dying embers of games to triumph over their opponents is far from ideal.
Indeed, they do end up getting the results, but for fans and even the players themselves, it can’t be good to keep leaving their best form for the last 10 minutes of the game.
At the moment, it’s not all that much of a stress, but when their luck eventually runs out, things could turn sour rather quickly.
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