Monday night’s victory over Crystal Palace was arguably van Dijk’s greatest performance in a Liverpool shirt so far and with thousands of people watching both in the stadium and on TV the Dutchman showed everybody why Liverpool was prepared to pay a record fee for his services. However, van Dijk’s brilliance isn’t just about Monday night, but more to do with the influence he’s had on that Liverpool back line since he’s come in.If we wind the clock back to this point last season Liverpool were struggling defensively, having shipped in three against Watford on the opening day Liverpool’s vulnerability at the back was clear for the whole world to see, a defender was needed and van Dijk seemed to be Klopp’s number one target. However with Liverpool being a little too eager to get their man early on in the window and getting caught with our hands in the cookie jar, Liverpool decided not to move for van Dijk on deadline day, a decision that I criticised heavily at the time.
With Liverpool then conceding five at Manchester City, three at Leicester, four at Tottenham and another three at Sevilla the defensive issues were clearly not going away. However when Liverpool decided to move for van Dijk just before the January window opened there was a renewed hope that he could finally fix the issues that had been plaguing us for years.I knew van Dijk would be a good signing however what I didn’t anticipate was how good he would be, I remember Jamie Carragher literally biting off Jamie Redknapp’s head while discussing this issue at the beginning of last season. Carragher was arguing the point that even though van Dijk would be a good signing he wouldn’t automatically solve Liverpool’s defensive problems, and at the time I agreed with him, but what do we know. As a Liverpool fan and a Liverpool critic when you say or write something negative about Liverpool you want to be proved wrong by the team and I have never been more happy to be proven wrong than I was about van Dijk.His commanding presence in that backline simply oozes confidence throughout the Liverpool defence and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that both Andy Robinson and Trent Alexander-Arnold have emerged as two of the best full backs in the country since van Dijk’s arrival. Even Dejan Lovren, who has had a troubled Liverpool career to put it lightly, has ended up being recognised amongst the best centre backs in the league, and all of this since van Dijk’s come in.
Numbers don’t lie and in the Premier League Liverpool have kept 10 clean sheets this calendar year, the highest of anyone in the Premier League, we’ve only conceded 14 Premier League goals since January, the lowest in the division, and since that 2-2 draw against Tottenham at Anfield in February we have only conceded two goals at home and both of them came in the last ten minutes against Roma.You can see by these figures the influence that van Dijk has had on the way Liverpool are defending, if you had told me at the beginning of last season that Dejan Lovren would keep Cristiano Ronaldo completely quiet in the Champions League final I would have told you you’re having a laugh but that is exactly what happened in May and even though we lost the final the fact that he kept Ronaldo quiet is down to the influence van Dijk has had.Monday night he was amazing, a monster at the back and a leader in every sense of the word, the ball just seemed to be attracted to his head as he won every aerial duel that he came up against. We all know how much Christian Benteke has caused us problems in the past both when he was at Villa and after he left us to join Palace he has been a real thorn in our side, but on Monday he was nowhere, well actually to be more accurate he was in van Dijk’s back pocket.
The Dutchman kept Benteke quiet the whole game and it was quite nice not seeing the Belgium forward being able to bully our defenders. I remember one point in particular in the second half when Benteke went over to Joe Gomez???s side in order to try and get more joy, the minute the first long ball came up you could hear van Dijk telling Gomez to “leave it!” as he came out of nowhere and won the ball from Benteke, that’s natural leadership. I’m not going to go into an argument over the captaincy because this isn’t the right time to get into that but what I will say is van Dijk definitely has become the captain of that defence and is fast becoming a defensive icon at Anfield.If Liverpool are going to challenge for the title this season van Dijk’s leadership of that back line is going to be crucial and I really do think if his performances mirror Monday night’s, and don’t see why they wouldn’t, we are going to be right up there at the end of the season.Article by Imraan Adam @imadam786
