Virgil van Dijk has pleaded with Jurgen Klopp not to rest him, despite the fact the Dutchman has played every minute of the Premier League so far.
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There have been suggestions the Dutchman might be tired, although it hasn’t been displayed in his jaw-dropping performances which have been consistently brilliant all season.
Van Dijk has had three different partners at the back: Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Dejan Lovren – but whoever plays – our defence looks superb with Alisson between the sticks and VVD marshalling the back four.
As a result, van Dijk wants to remain in the side for all 38 matches and has promised another strong outing v Manchester City on January 3rd.
“I don’t need to rest. Everyone wants to play every game,” he told the official website.
“It’s not like you want to sit on the bench or be in the stand. I just go with it. As long as I’m fit and feel all right then I just keep going and playing.
“We can now focus on the City game. Before we didn’t do that. Arsenal had been playing pretty well this season so we had to stay focused on them, not think about City,” said the defender.
“We have finished 2018 now pretty well and hopefully we can keep that going.
“City is a game that we want to win. It will be very hard, very tough, but for them as well. It’s going be a good match, but it is not a decisive game or something like that. We are not going to treat it different to any other.
“We will be prepared for a very tough game. Confidence is definitely here, but it can change over a couple of games. We won’t get carried away. We need to keep doing what we have been doing.
“There will be setbacks, as there always is in life, but it’s how you react and so far we have been doing pretty well.
“There are things to improve, but we are top of the league, still in the Champions League, and we are doing well, we just need to keep going.”
Van Dijk will obviously stay in the side for the City clash, but we’re 100% convinced he’ll not feature against Wolves in the FA Cup the following weekend.
We reckon Klopp will field an entirely rested XI, featuring the likes of Divock Origi, Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana.
There are not many options at centre-back, so it’ll be interesting to see who Klopp goes for. Perhaps we’ll field some youngsters, such as Nate Philipps.