The first part of John Aldridge’s Liverpool column, who is full of praise for Virgil van Dijk’s recent form
I was really pleased with Liverpool‘s convincing 3-0 victory over Brentford at Anfield on Sunday. Reflecting on the game, there were so many positives. I thought Virgil van Dijk had his best game of the season and now looks back to his best after a difficult season last campaign.
Virgil van Dijk of Liverpool
As well as that, the strikers scored all of the goals, with Mohamed Salah’s brace taking his tally in English football to the 200-goal mark. When was the last time we had a defender or midfielder score a goal?
It’s amazing, with the likes of Diogo Jota, Salah, Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and even young Ben Doak they keep delivering the goals. And as long as they keep finding the back of the net, we’ll continue to win games in the Premier League.
Sunday’s victory came at the end of a difficult week for Liverpool after failing to win either of their away games against Luton Town and Toulouse, but it was so pleasing to see the side strike back in such convincing fashion. It was a deserved win.
Liverpool’s attack had a great day
On Van Dijk, he will have known that he struggled and wasn’t at his best last season. In his defence, though, when you have an injury as bad as he did a few years ago, it happens. Of course, you lose your way a little bit.
I think the captain’s role played a role. Van Dijk plays an important role not only in his performance but also in looking after the other players on the field and being a leader. The fact that he was given that responsibility probably helped him return to the form we saw all those years ago when Liverpool won the Champions League and Premier League.
I was a captain myself during my playing days and you’re essentially the manager on the pitch. You have a responsibility that no one else has. That might be that sometimes a manager can’t get a message across to the players on the pitch and therefore it’s your job to get the message across. You’ve got to know exactly what the manager needs, you have to be close to thinking like the manager.
Liverpool returns to the new season extremely strong
Among all of the positives to take from the early months of the season, I’ve been impressed with Liverpool’s bouncebackability. Even in some of the games that we’ve struggled, we’ve still managed to secure points in the last second, as we’ve seen in games against Newcastle and Luton already. It’s good that we’ve got off to the start that we needed to get ourselves in the thick of it all.
All we can do now is look ahead to that trip to Manchester City in two week’s time, we have to avoid defeat at all costs.
