Liverpool have endured a tough few weeks, and their struggles continued over the weekend with a loss to Brentford — their fourth consecutive Premier League defeat. Arne Slot’s side have now dropped to seventh in the table. While new arrivals Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz have faced scrutiny for their slow starts, several key players from last season’s title-winning campaign have also failed to maintain their standards — notably captain Virgil van Dijk.
Alan Shearer and Micah Richards criticize Van Dijk’s form
On The Rest Is Football podcast (via TBR Football), Alan Shearer criticized both Van Dijk and his defensive partner Ibrahima Konate for their poor showing at Brentford:
> “They were dreadful all over the pitch. People can talk about issues in midfield or the lack of chemistry up front, but defensively — my word.
Van Dijk and Konate were all over the place. The full-backs have taken a lot of criticism this season, and rightly so at times, but the centre-backs were just as bad, maybe worse. They were terrible at Brentford — both of them.”
Micah Richards agreed with Shearer but suggested that Van Dijk’s form is being dragged down by Konate’s inconsistency:
> “Yeah, they were poor. But I think what we’re seeing is Van Dijk needs more help. He’s spent years carrying that back line, bailing others out. Now he needs Konate to do the same for him, and it’s not happening. You can’t have both centre-backs struggling at once.”
Liverpool must halt their decline quickly if they are to have any hope of keeping their Premier League title ambitions alive — which are slipping further away with each defeat.
Leave a Reply