Micah Richards and Alan Shearer have both voiced their concerns about one Liverpool player who ‘needs help’ amid a ‘terrible’ run of form.
The Reds’ Premier League woes continued on Saturday night as they lost a fourth successive top-flight game, conceding as many goals to Brentford in one match as Arsenal have in their nine games in their division so far this term.
It wasa chastening night for Virgil van Dijk not only in terms of the amplification of our defensive issues, but also for the penalty that he gave away, which looked harsh as subsequent footage indicated that his foul on Dango Ouattara may have been just outside the box.
Nonetheless, the Liverpool captain came in for criticism on the latest episode of The Rest Is Football podcast.
Shearer lambastes Van Dijk as Richards calls for Konate to ‘help’
Shearer blunty declared: “The two centre-halves, they are all over the place. They’ve been terrible and they were at Brentford. They were awful, both of them, Van Dijk and Konate.”
Richards agreed with his colleague’s verdict and also called on the Frenchman to do more to help his senior partner, saying: “They were, and I think what we’re seeing now is, Van Dijk needs help. How many times, in previous seasons, has Van Dijk bailed them out?
“You look at partnerships and we’ve always talked about Van Dijk and how good he is. He needs Konate to bail him out at the moment and that’s not happening, so you have two centre-halves not playing well at the same time.”
Van Dijk and Konate can both do so much better
The curiosity about Van Dijk’s performance at Brentford is that his match stats make for good reading – as per Sofascore, he won 10 duels and made a whopping 14 clearances – but he’ll have been disappointed with some key moments in the game.
He’ll have been furious not to have won the first header from the long throw-in which culminated in Ouattara’s early goal, and however harsh the second-half penalty for the Bees might’ve been, we suspect that the Dutchman at his best would’ve gotten to the ball first.
Richards does raise an interesting point about the 34-year-old ‘needing help’ from Konate, though. The Frenchman is at an age where he should be standing out as a genuine leader at the back for Liverpool, just as our current captain did when he was in his mid-20s.
Unfortunately, our number 5 was caught napping for Brentford’s second goal on Saturday and has had a few ‘nightmare‘ performances this season, with the weekend’s display being another to add to that list.
We agree that Van Dijk needs more from his centre-back partner, but the Reds could also do with their skipper rediscovering the levels he showed in both of his league-winning campaigns at Anfield.
They need more help, better protection from the midfield. It’s difficult to be too critical of konate and van dijk because over the years they’ve been so good, only arsenal have better central defender’s in the premier league. At the moment we need to be better without the ball and from set piece’s, we need to sacrifice a few attacking players to be resilient at the back. Playing three central defender’s would improve thing’s, especially from set piece’s. I would bring in gomez and play 352, without the ball it will be 532. Play Endo to protect the defence with szoboszlai and Mac allister in midfield, salah and Ekitike up front. The width comes from the attacking full backs. More compact in midfield and gomez is extra player at the back to help konate and van dijk. Look at the success crystal Palace have with this system. There needs be change, something now has to change, we are vulnerable at the back, confidence must be shattered. If we can sort out the problems idefensively then we build on that. Remember that we have the best attacking talent in the premier league, two top strikers, salah and others. Getting the balance right between attack and defending without the ball Will now be the biggest test of Arne slots managerial
career. Palace, villa, Real Madrid, Manchester city.
Don’t improve in these games slot will be gone.
So much work for such paucity of substance.