Virgil van Dijk has had a tough season at Liverpool. (Photo by Ryan Pearce/Getty Images)
Liverpool have had a very difficult few weeks and their poor form continued at the weekend with defeat at Brentford. Arne Slott’s team suffered four consecutive defeats in the Premier League, dropping them to seventh place.
Much has been made of the struggles of new signings Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, but some players who were at a very high level last season have not been able to reproduce their form – including captain Virgil van Dijk.
Alan Shearer and Mika Richards talk about Virgil van Dijk’s fight
Speaking on The Rest Is Football (via TBR Football), Alan Shearer targeted Van Dijk and centre-back partner Ibrahima Konate for their performance against Brentford.
“They’re very bad all over the pitch. And whatever you want about them in midfield, the lack of defense or the lack of coordination between the players up front. But defensively, well, it goes without saying.”
“So it’s Van Dijk and Konate. The two full-backs have gotten a lot of stick and a lot of criticism, and I understand that, and I understand that. But two centre-backs? They’re everywhere. They were terrible. And they were at Brentford — they were both terrible, I mean Van Dijk and Konate, right?”
Micah Richards agreed with Shearer, but believes Van Dijk’s struggles were due to little support from Konate.
“Oh, they were terrible. And I think what we’re seeing now is that Van Dijk needs help. How many times has Van Dijk bailed them out in the season so far? If you think about the partnership, we… We’ve always talked about Van Dijk and how good he is. He needs Konate to bail him out at the moment, but that’s not happening, so you can’t have two centre-halves playing well at the same time.”
Liverpool need to break out of that rut as soon as possible if they are to have the best chance of retaining their currently slipping Premier League title.