Virgil van Dijk has leapt to the defence of Alexis Mac Allister after criticism of a midweek holiday to Rome before Liverpool faced Manchester United on Sunday.
Sadly for Van Dijk, though, supporters are unlikely to accept his excuse that Mac Allister – and Dominik Szoboszlai who appeared to travel with him – was not on holiday at all, but merely on a ‘city trip.’
Liverpool have needed their captain to step up and set the standards this season, but with comments such as the rubbish he came out with following defeat to United, he is falling way, way short.
How do you feel about Liverpool players taking ‘city trips’ on private jets days before big games?
And then going on to play abysmally…
Van Dijk insists Liverpool players have the right amount of time off
It has been a common theme this season to see Liverpool players enjoying themselves away from the training pitch in the lead-up to big games.
Ask supporters, and this all comes back to Arne Slot, who regularly takes trips back to the Netherlands to visit his family, who do not live with him in England.
For the cynics, Slot is granting his squad more days off – regardless of any poor form – simply to allow himself the time to jet back to see his wife and kids.
Clearly, the players are having a blast, but when performances are as dismal as the first half showing at Old Trafford, posts such as the one Mac Allister shared to Instagram on Friday, showing himself enjoying all sorts of luxuries, including a private jet snap of Szoboszlai, make supporters angry.
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Disappointingly, Van Dijk seems to see absolutely no issue, with the captain claiming that players had only one day off in the build-up to the United match, and if some players chose to use that to fly to and back from Rome, then that is fair game.
“A few days off? You mean one day off?” the Dutchman challenged reporters in the mixed zone. “I’m not sure it’s a holiday. It’s a city trip,” he added in fantastically tone-deaf fashion when questioned on Mac Allister.
“But I think if you have one day off, and you don’t have many days off, they decide what they want to do with their families. We are not kids. Everyone is an adult.
“This week we have an early kick-off on Saturday. So preparation is on that. Yesterday we were in a hotel. Today we played. So two days away with the family again. It’s not that we have a holiday whatsoever.”
Van Dijk needs to have a word with Mac Allister
When Mohamed Salah spoke up in the week about standards at the club dropping, this is exactly what he meant.
You wouldn’t ever have caught the Egyptian flying off for a quick European visit in the lead-up to any game, let alone one as big as United.
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In days gone by, you can imagine the likes of Jordan Henderson and James Milner absolutely railing against this sort of behaviour, but it is now seen as being perfectly fine by the current captain.
If, indeed, Mac Allister and Szoboszlai are so desperate to have a little jaunt away a handful of days before a massive fixture, then at the very least Van Dijk needs to tell them to keep it quiet.
With fans already angry after an unbelievably poor campaign, the last thing they need to see as they prepare to spend their hard-earned money watching their team face off with their bitter rivals is this sort of rubbish.
Van Dijk surely sees it, and perhaps it is credit to him for backing his teammates publicly, but he must think Liverpool fans are idiots if they are going to accept this kind of nonsense moving forward.
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