Micah Richards has explained he has some sympathy for one of Jurgen Klopp’s ‘outstanding’ Liverpool players.
It was another frustrating performance from Liverpool at the weekend as they were held to a 2-2 draw with West Ham at the London Stadium.
Five changes were made from our Merseyside derby defeat but one of the players to retain his spot in the starting XI was skipper Virgil van Dijk.
Our No.4 was handed the captain’s armband in the summer following the departure of Jordan Henderson to Saudi Arabia and although the Dutchman has looked back to his best this term former Manchester City defender Richards believes it’s ‘been difficult’ for the 32-year-old due to the fact he hasn’t had a settled central defensive partner for the majority of the season.
“I think Van Dijk has been outstanding this season, but he has constantly had to chop and change centre-half partners whether that’s Konate or Quansah. It has been difficult. He has had to be flawless for big parts of the season,” Richards said on the Rest Is Football Podcast (via The Boot Room).
After picking up the League Cup in February the Reds had aspirations of adding a further three trophies to their collection this term.
Their form in recent weeks has seen them dumped out of the FA Cup and Europa League however, while also losing ground in the title race after disappointing results against Crystal Palace, Everton and West Ham.
Many doubted whether we’d ever see van Dijk at his best again after his serious knee injury a few years ago and with him now being the wrong side of 30 but he’s silenced many of his critics this season.
The last few weeks clearly haven’t gone to plan for him or his teammates but he’ll now have his sights firmly focused on picking up nine points from our final three league games.
It’ll be interesting to see what plans incoming Liverpool boss Arne Slot has for the Netherlands skipper, amongst others, next term but we’ll just have to wait and see!