In what is an absolutely ridiculous and farcical comment, Paul Merson has said that he wants to see how Liverpool would cope in a Premier League title race with Manchester City without star defender Virgil van Dijk.
It’s no secret that City have had their injury problems this season, and losing Aymeric Laporte is a gargantuan blow, but it’s not like we haven’t had our own problems.
Admittedly, losing van Dijk would be detrimental for Liverpool but it’s still a daft comment from the former Arsenal man.
“When they chase a game, they are not good defensively like Liverpool, while Liverpool can play two versus two at the back. Virgil van Dijk and whoever he plays with can play two versus two. City, when chasing the game, can’t play two versus two,” he told Sky Sports (via the Liverpool Echo).
“For however great a team they are, and they are, Pep Guardiola has had his injuries at just the wrong time. Sergio Aguero has just got injured, you cannot afford to miss Aymeric Laporte. They are two big football players for them and then all of a sudden you have to take Fernandinho out of the midfield.
“It all starts from the front and no Aguero… he is probably one of the best Premier League centre forwards of all time, so they have been unfortunate.
“I would like to see Liverpool with Van Dijk injured for three months like Laporte and then take out a Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah for a while. But Liverpool have been quite fortunate as a lot of their players play a lot of football and they play the same team.”
The amount of money the Citizens have spent on players – especially defenders – and it gets to the point where you’d imagine they’d be able to ride the wave of injuries a season brings.
Besides, it’s all part of the game. If a player like van Dijk is out for a long period of time, of course it’s going to effect how a team plays — the same with Laporte and City.
We’ve only just got our first choice goalkeeper back after a few months out, and Joel Matip is hardly having a good time with injuries — like I said earlier, we’ve had out own problems.
Try as much as you want, Paul, I’m not going to feel sorry for Man City when they get a few injuries, like every other team in the Premier League.