Virgil van Dijk has admitted that Liverpool’s hectic December fixture schedule is quite ‘demanding’ but is confident that Jurgen Klopp’s squad can negotiate the workload.
Having played LASK on Thursday and Fulham yesterday, the Reds have swiftly turned their attention towards the away Premier League double header against Sheffield United on Wednesday night and Crystal Palace on Saturday lunchtime.
A five-day breather then precedes another burst of five matches in 13 days, but luckily the first of those is a Europa League dead rubber against Union Saint-Gilloise, with LFC having already wrapped up top spot in their group.
Speaking straight after the 4-3 win over Fulham on Sunday (via Liverpool Echo), Van Dijk said that the arduous December fixture schedule is ‘something we have all accepted over the last couple of years’.
He added: “You are already looking ahead and making sure you are doing the right things. In my case I will get treatment tonight and I will do all the recovery stuff tonight in order to be much fresher tomorrow morning.
“Then we have another recovery session tomorrow, so it is basically: play, recover, sleep well, eat well and be ready for the next game. It’s a demanding process but we cannot complain, you know.
“I think we always have the team [analysis] meetings the day before the game but like I said the mode is already on recovery from this and tomorrow we will do this already with an eye on Sheffield United and Tuesday we have a big meeting for that. Then we travel on Wednesday to Sheffield and we will be ready for a tough game.”
For clubs such as Liverpool who compete in Europe annually, managing two or three games in a week isn’t an unfamiliar task, although the current sequence of 10 matches in 33 days is gruelling even by our standards.
Van Dijk himself has previously hit out at the excessive workload being heaped upon footballers at the highest level and urged the sport’s main stakeholders to have a ‘conversation’ on the subject (Liverpool Echo).
Tricky trips to Bramall Lane and Selhurst Park represent banana skins at the best of times, so to have both of those in the space of 72 hours will be a massive test of the Reds’ stomach for a Premier League title fight this season.
Cynics will point to the enormous wages that players in the English top flight earn and insist that they get on with it, but Van Dijk’s insight provides a window into just how relentless this week will be for him and his teammates, who know that the margin for error is zero.
Liverpool’s fans and squad will be hugely relieved that, at least by getting their business done in the Europa League early, the trip to Belgium next week offers a chance for first-team regulars to get an additional rest before Manchester United come to town the following Sunday.